Author: Minivan News

Turkmenistan delegation meets with President Waheed

Economic development was among the key areas of discussion during a meeting between cabinet minsters from Turkmenistan and the government of President Dr Mohamed Waheed Hassan in Male’ yesterday.

According to the President’s Office website, a high level delegation including Deputy Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers of Turkmenistan, Hojamuhammet Muhammedov arrived in Male’ as part of a visit to potentially extend relations with the Maldives.

A dinner hosted by the president was held later in the evening at the Kurumba Maldives resort.  The event was attended by First Lady Ilham Hussain, and dignitaries including cabinet representatives of both countries, the President’s Office said.

Likes(0)Dislikes(0)

STELCO installs new generator

The State Electric Company (STELCO) today begun using the first of two new generators designed to alleviate a shortfall in the country’s energy needs after a successful test was completed on the unit, according to local media.

A STELCO official told Haveeru that the first 8.9 Megawatt generator had now been connected to the country’s power generation system, with testing on a second identical unit expected to begin soon.

The company back in April announced it was having to enforce scheduled power cuts to offset a shortage estimated at the time of 2.5 megawatts of energy.

The two new generators were initially set to be implemented as part of the fourth power project back in December last year. This date was later pushed back to May 2012.

Once installed, the two new unit will complement the company’s existing 17 generators operated by STELCO.

STELCO is a state company that provides electricity to 50 percent of the population.

Likes(0)Dislikes(0)

Islamic Foundation of Maldives launches country’s first religious TV station

The Islamic Foundation of the Maldives (IFM) today launched a new television channel said to be exclusively geared towards religious programming, local media has reported.

The channel, known as MVTV, is planned to be broadcast on a daily basis between 2:00pm and midnight across the country on both the Maldives’ digital terrestrial network and satellite services.

Speaking to Sun Online, Ibrahim Mohamed, who heads the station’s production and broadcasting, claimed that the channel would make use of sheikhs “not active in politics” to provide religious information to viewers.

MVTV is available presently on channel 155 of the Medianet service, according to the report.

Correction: The headline to this story incorrectly stated that the Islamic Ministry was launching the religious television station. The station is being started by the Islamic Foundation of the Maldives, which is unaffiliated with the government. Minivan News regrets the error and apologises for any confusion.

Likes(1)Dislikes(0)

MDP supporters target follow-up Colombo protest

Sri Lanka-based supporters of the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) have announced plans to protest outside the Maldives High Commission in the capital of Colombo tomorrow afternoon.

Organisers of the demonstration, which will be held between 4:00pm and 6:00pm outside the High Commission building on Melbourne Avenue, have claimed that hundreds of Maldivian expatriates and MDP supporters are expected to be in attendance.

The demonstration will focus on condemning the government of President Dr Mohamed Waheed Hassan, which the party contends came to power in a “coup”, for not facilitating early elections this year, as well as drawing attention to alleged examples of brutality conducted by police and military under the present administration.

The protest will also reportedly “express solidarity with friendly nations” and organisations like the Commonwealth.

The intergovernmental organisation, along with the EU, has called for elections to be held before the end of 2012 as a means to restore political stability to the country.

The Commonwealth had also asserted pressure on the Maldives government to reconstitute the Commission of National Inquiry (CNI) set up by President Waheed to probe the circumstances behind February’s controversial transfer of power.

Tomorrow’s protest comes one month on from a similar demonstration held by the MDP in Colombo.  Local media at the time reported that a “few dozen” demonstrators had been in attendance during the previous High Commission protest.

Likes(0)Dislikes(0)

Sermons question presidential authority on clemency: local media

Imams across the Maldives yesterday used their sermons to question the president’s authority to grant clemency for criminals sentenced to death in the country, local media has reported.

The Sun Online news service reported that yesterday’s Friday prayers were used to raise the issue of death sentences in the country, with imams saying that only the heirs of an alleged victim could decide on pardoning a criminal sentenced to be executed.

According to the report, the sermons also stressed that failure to implement the death penalty over fears of human activists or “powerful countries” was not allowed in Islam.

Speaking to Minivan News earlier this month, Chief Justice Ahmed Faiz said that more than 10 people have been sentenced to death in the past decade, out of which, none have been executed by the authorities tasked with the role.

For the past 60 years, the state has been commuting these death sentences to life imprisonment (25 years).

“The Maldives judicial system is constructed in a manner whereby another body is responsible to enforce the punishment once it is decided by the court,” Faiz explained.
“Not only in murder cases, but if all court verdicts on all crimes are properly enforced,  we will see the [positive] outcomes of these verdicts,” the Supreme court judge noted.

A motion related to death penalty is currently being reviewed in parliament which, if passed, will make the enforcement of the death penalty mandatory in the event it is upheld by the Supreme Court. This development would bring to an end the current practice of the country’s president commuting such sentences to life imprisonment.

Likes(2)Dislikes(0)

President commits to extending national dialysis services by end of year

President Doctor Mohamed Waheed Hassan has committed to provide dialysis services to two further regions of the Maldives this year after unveiling a new treatment unit at Hulhumale’ Hospital on Thursday (July 12).

Speaking during the unveiling of the Hulhumale’ Dialysis Unit, which forms part of a focus to expand the availability of healthcare services beyond the capital, the president said plans were in place for providing similar services to two unspecified areas of the country with higher populations, according to the President’s Office website.

The new unit to Hulhumale’ hospital was said to have been provided by “private individuals”, underlining what the President’s Office called a “priority given by the government to provide such services without entirely being dependent on the government budget.”

Likes(0)Dislikes(0)

Death Penalty!?: Dr Hassan Saeed

“We should be clear on why want to carry out the death penalty. Do we want it as deterrence or as a discharge of a divine obligation?” Dr Hassan Saeed, Special Advisor to President Waheed, has asked the question in an opinion piece for Haveeru.

“Last week I talked about the murder of my friend Ahmed Najeeb. Knowing him well as I did I sought to rationalize how we as a society should respond to such a senseless act. I felt it was the least I could do to honour his memory and make some sense of this tragedy.

It is also right that we consider our emotions too. As well as sadness there is anger. That anger can drive us to seek retribution as a form of justice. Seeking an equivalent penalty from the murderer could be seen as a form of fairness and has a long history across religions and cultures throughout the world. It is not just particular to us in the Maldives.

I have seen the use of execution with my own eyes. As a teenager I witnessed two people being hanged in Faisalabaad, Pakistan. I was close to the platform setup for the hanging. The hanging was announced in advance. I went to see the event. And found a space reasonably close to the platform.  It was a vast open field and the whole place was full. I have never seen such a huge crowd.

I saw the two men brought to the place of execution. When the two of were brought in front of the crowd the public cursed. Their hands and legs were tied. Their faces were covered in a sack like cloth piece. When they were hanged I saw them struggling. There was deafening silence. Finally their struggle came to an end. Doctors checked and the bodies were taken away.

The military ruler of Pakistan General Ziyaul Haqq clearly knew what he was doing. He was carrying out Quranic punishment. He believed pubic execution would be the best form of deterrence.

It certainly affected me. Even some 27 years later I still have clear memories of that day. I am sure lot of others who witnessed that event would remember that too.

But I haven’t committed murder because of that experience. It was because I believe it is wrong. It is an offence. One of my neighbours who also witnessed the hanging was arrested shortly afterwards for attempted murder! Apparently the incident did not deter him.

Following the murder of lawyer Najeeb lots of people are calling for the death penalty. Perhaps the loudest argument in favour of it is that it would deter offenders. I will come back to the issue of deterrence, but there are a lot of issues in this debate, which in a short article, one cannot do full justice to.

Some are legal issues that I am aware of from my professional work. The death penalty is very expensive to administer. It is a lucrative area for lawyers as appeals will take years. Do we want a justice system that costs the Maldivian people even more than imprisonment? It can also be arbitrary where the quality of the defence counsel will determine the outcome as much as the actual guilt of the suspect.”

Read More.

Likes(0)Dislikes(0)

“No legal barrier” to implement Nexbis system: immigration controller

Controller of Immigration and Emigration Dr Mohamed Ali has said there is “no legal barrier” preventing the implementation of a border control system (BCS) developed by Malaysia-based security solutions firm Nexbis.

Dr Ali told Minivan News today Nexbis could continue with introduction of a new biometric BCS system after the Supreme Court in June invalidated a High Court injunction blocking work on the project in May.

The controller made his comments after Home Minister Dr Mohamed Jameel Ahmed maintained calls in local media to halt the BCS installation, citing allegations of corruption involving the deal.

Dr Jameel claimed a letter requesting work on the project to cease in line with the recommendations of Attorney General Aishath Azima Shakoor and the country’s Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) had been sent to the immigration controller.

“The government is also of the same view pertaining to the continuation of the project. We urge the project be taken forward with the recommendations of the AG and the ACC. As far as I’m aware, it is the stand of the government,” he was quoted as saying by Haveeru.

President’s Office spokesperson Abbas Adil Riza was not responding to calls at the time of press regarding the comments attributed to Dr Jameel.

The legal dispute between the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) and Nexbis escalated last week after the High Court ordered police to investigate claims made to the ACC that Chief Judge of the High Court Ahmed Shareef met officials from the company in Bangkok.

The dispute concerns the deployment of a border control system, specifically the installation of an electronic border gate system in Male’s Ibrahim Nasir International Airport (INIA), bringing technological upgrades such as facial recognition, fingerprint identification and e-gates to the Maldives.

The Rf500 million (US$39 million) deal had stalled after the ACC alleged corruption in the bidding process, leading to a ongoing series of high-profile court battles and delays that led the Malaysian firm to threaten legal action against the Maldivian government should it incur losses for the work already done on the project.

In May 2012, the project was brought to a standstill by a High Court injunction and a raid on immigration offices by ACC staff. At the time the Rf10 million (US$650,000) first phase of the border control project had been completed, according to local media reports.

Speaking today, Immigration Controller Dr Ali claimed that, in light of the Supreme Court’s decision to overrule the injunction, Nexbis had continued its work to install the system from where it had previously been halted.

“In the absence of a legal order and unless I get a decision from the cabinet, there is nothing that I can do on this issue,” he said. “The government wanted a biometric system to stop the smuggling and trafficking of people.”

Dr Ali added that with the Maldives having already signed up to conventions pledging to try and more effectively combat Transnational Organised Crime like human trafficking, new systems were needed to help meet these aims.

“From our own experience, we have found people being trafficked back into the country even after they have previously been deported,” the controller claimed.  “A system like this should put a stop to that.”

Trafficking concerns

The Maldives last month featured in the US State Department’s Tier Two Watch List for Human Trafficking for the third year in a row.

Having “not demonstrated evidence of increasing efforts to address human trafficking over the previous year”, the country only narrowly avoided a descent to Tier 3 – the worst category – after presenting a written plan on its commitments, claimed a corresponding US State Department report.

According to the report, implementation of the government’s written plan, “would constitute making significant efforts to meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking.”

Likes(0)Dislikes(0)