Author: Neil Merrett

Mubarak may face execution as protests and violence continue to engulf region

Egypt’s former president may face execution over allegations he ordered the killing of demonstrators opposed to his rule, while Syrian security officials have reportedly violently suppressed thousands of anti-government protesters as political unrest continues to rock the Middle East and North Africa.

Syria, along with a number of nations including Saudi Arabia, Iran, Bahrain, Libya, Egypt and Tunisia have all reportedly witnessed surges in anti-government activism in recent months as political unrest has spread through the region leading to demonstrations against their respective rulers – all to varying degrees of success.

The BBC reported yesterday that security forces loyal to Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad have continued to crack down on protests during a “month of unrest”. Amidst this political landscape, news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) revealed that Egypt’s currently detained former leader Hosni Mubarak could stand trial and face the death penalty over suspicions that he ordered the murder of activists opposed to his rule.

The AFP cited reports in local state-owned media that prominent figures in Cairo’s Appeals Court had claimed that the execution of the former president could be possible if he was convicted of having a role in murdering protestors who stood against his rule at mass demonstrations across the country before Mubarak eventually stood down in February as activism intensified.

According to the report, the head of the country’s Appeals Court said that if testimony by Habib al-Adly, a interior minister serving under Mubarak, implicating the disposed president in approving the shooting of some protestors proved to be true, he too could face a custodial sentence or execution.

Media reports suggest that up to 800 people are thought to have been killed during a wave of protests before Mubarak was finally toppled. However, further protests in the country has thought to have been averted by authorities following the detention of Mubarak and his two sons Alaa and Gamal over alleged links to violent suppression, the AFP reported.

Meanwhile, Syrian authorities have also been charged with violently suppressing it citizens, with the BBC reporting have been some of the largest-scale protests yet seen in the country calling for an end to the rule of President Bashar al-Assad.

According to the news agency, tear gas and batons were used by authorities to repel protestors that reportedly had gathered in their thousands in Damascus to continue to demand al-Assad’s resignation despite his attempts to make “some concessions” to his rule.

State media reportedly confirmed that small demonstrations had taken place across the country without the intervention of security officials, the BBC added.

In its own coverage of the protests, Al Jazeera reported that some witnesses in Damascus claimed that some 15 buses full of secret police had been drafted in to try and quell protests, while plain clothes-armed men were reported to have surrounded protestors gathered outside the Salam mosque in the city’s Barzeh district.

The news agency added that protests carried out against the government elsewhere in the country such as Baniyas, Latakia, Baida and Homs appeared to have gone ahead peacefully.

Reuters reported that unrest was also continuing elsewhere in the region this week with hundreds of Shias protesting around the Saudi Arabian region of Qatif to demand the release of prisoners they claim to have been held without a trial on political and religious grounds.

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Fear and acclimatisation in Fares-Maathoda

In the first part of a special report from the island of Fares-Maathoda, Minivan News looks at the challenges for communities developing beyond Male’s glance as they attempt to switch to decentralised governance and overcome their natural vulnerabilities.

If the rate of development in the Maldives could be measured in the availability of Lavazza-branded espresso, then the conjoined islands of Fares-Maathoda in the Gaafu Dhaalu Atoll, while offering a very warm welcome, remain an instant coffee type-of-place.

With its sparsely populated community estimated at about 1000 people, the island is dense with jungle vegetation that rests alongside inhabited and incomplete homes, while crabs on the beach nestle between piles of coconut husk, used food wrapping and milk cartons amidst views of an apparently endless blue horizon.

The relatively unique geography of the islands could be said to reflect a wealth of challenges facing the wider country regarding waste management, coastal protection and economic development.

Since being formed back in the 1990’s via reclaimed land over a shallow passage of water linking the two islands in an attempt to create a small craft harbour for its residents, the UN has cited concerns from Fares-Maathoda’s residents that flooding has been made worse and far more frequent as a result.

While the islands may not specifically serve as a microcosm for the nation’s delicate beauty and democratic reform process, UN Resident Coordinator Andrew Cox said he believed that Fares-Maathoda was very typical in reflecting the Maldives’ vulnerability to natural elements as well as the development needs of its people.

“This counts as a vulnerable island; vulnerable economically and all the other issues that come along with that,” he said. “People make their money off fishing here and there are not a lot of other options or a strong tourism industry in the area. So you don’t get people earning money and bringing income in that way. One of the things that research shows is that islands or communities do very well if their livelihoods are good and if they are well organised.”

Since coming to power, President Mohamed Nasheed has garnered huge international coverage, as well as foreign accolades for his attempts in trying to champion the Maldives as a small nation working towards becoming a fully sustainable economy. Yet at island level, how are these commitments being seen?

Cox added that the time had perhaps come for government to be more inward looking by opening up national debate and understanding of what climate change could mean for the Maldives on an everyday basis.

“The president has been exceptional at selling climate change issues to the world. Yet I think the Maldives will benefit at every level through a basic of understanding what [climate change] is going to mean for the country and how it is that decisions are going to be made in the future about what are the best chances for economic growth. Where is it that people are going to be living? How are they going to be living?” he said. “All these things I think could be and must be fleshed out. I think it could be a very interesting national dialogue to have. There has been a certain amount already, but this about the future in the Maldives.”

Cox himself, along with representatives from the Ministry of Finance and Treasury, the Ministry of Housing and Environment, the National Office and the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) visited Fares-Maathoda on April 12 to meet with local councilors, and outline how Danish donor aid for funding climate change adaptation would be allocated on the island.

The allocated funding, which totals 5 million Danish Krone (Rf12 million) will be put into a scheme to support a wider number of future development projects targeted at offsetting the potential impacts on the country from climate change and rising sea levels. On Fares-Mathooda, some of the funds are being set aside for drainage and waste management projects.

Beyond president Nasheed’s international sustainability pledges, positioned on the other side of the country, and indeed the political spectrum, Fares-Mathooda, which elected five councillors into power from the opposition Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) in February’s local council elections, claims to have a great need for assistance in reducing its vulnerability to the sea and the elements.

Speaking to Minivan News, councillor Hussain Rasheed claimed that aside from the long-term threats of rising seas and freak natural disasters such as the 2004 Asian Tsunami, seasonal occurrences such as high tides were proving to be problematic for the island’s development.

The low-lying nature of the island had meant that storms and tidal swells were major problems for residents on the Fares side of the island, whom had in the past been forced to vacate to the Mathooda side for safety in certain circumstances.

“This is a very big problem, for instance, many people suffered psychologically when there was a tidal wave, and with many people affected, we needed a lot of assistance to relieve this suffering,” he said.

An engineer present at the meeting, as one of the bidders hoping to work on the climate change adaption projects for Fares-Mathooda, claimed that the low-lying geography of the island meant that waves of even a metre in height posed a huge flooding risk. The engineer added that the problem was made worse by the reclaimed land between the two formerly separate islands that had since been combined physically and administratively, limiting natural drainage options for water building up on the land.

In trying to address these concerns, Andrew Cox said that it was vital to focus on the specific vulnerabilities facing a community, island or an entire atoll in the case of the Maldives, rather than solely looking at large scale energy investments in a bid to provide national solutions to environmental and coastal management.

“What is it that people need? That is the bottom line,” he said. “People have been talking about climate change for a long-time, but it has been mostly focused around international negotiations to try and reverse carbon into the atmosphere. But so far there has not been an international deal,” he said.

Cox added that this failure for international agreement still hadn’t dampened interest from politicians, donors and NGOs in being seen to be “doing something” about climate change around the world.

“The big question that I think the Maldives can answer about climate adaption is, how do you do that? In real life what do these changes mean?” he asked.

According to Cox, like almost every other nation in the world, the Maldives does not have any large-scale examples of climate change programmes, but rather a great deal of smaller pilot projects designed to try and limit potential vulnerability to environmental changes. This he said, was often seen in a variety of areas such as water or waste management.

The UN representative said these smaller projects might be present on a number of islands in the form of different waste management projects that resulted in various levels of success.

“The central concept that we need to talk about and agree, is what happens when you bring all these things related to climate change together in one place? How do you make a material change in the vulnerability of one atoll?” he asked. “Even an atoll is too small, because the Maldives doesn’t have that much time, but you have to start somewhere. You take an atoll and see what it needs as a whole to get from point X on the vulnerability scale to point Y, which is hopefully above the minimum level of security.”

Just as important though, according to the UN Representative, would be the country’s attempts to overcome poverty through economic development measures, reducing a country’s vulnerability beyond investing in infrastructure alone.

“This is a concept that makes a lot of sense, but it hasn’t been done. The exciting thing for the Maldives is if you can go down that path, you can show donors the way. This will hopefully benefit the Maldives as well as international projects as well,” he said.

“It doesn’t necessarily mean all the answers will be here, but a lot of them might be.”

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New mobile towers cut power consumption in half, claims telco

The Maldives “need not return to the stone age” and neglect creature comforts for the sake of the environment, Maldives’ Environment Minister Mohamed Aslam has said, and should instead find alternative ways to continue enjoying technological developments.

Certain environmental groups remain skeptical of the true effectiveness of green business developments, even in the tourism sector where restrictions on developers are more comprehensive, however Aslam said he believed the Maldives had nonetheless taken a “bold step” in its own commitment to sustainable practices over the remaning decade.

Aslam made the claims while speaking at the launch of a new ‘green’ mobile tower by Wataniya, one of the country’s two telecos, at the Adaraan Hudhuranfushi resort on Saturday afternoon.

Wataniya claims the new Single Radio Access Network (RAN) tower provides more sustainable and operationally-efficient mobile phone and data coverage, albeit at a significantly higher cost of acquisition.

According to the company, the first tower installed will cover a 60 kilometre radius around Hudhuranfushi at a 54 percent reduction in total power consumption and 80 percent reduction in carbon footprint compared to existing installed technology, and could be easily upgraded to handle upcoming 4G developments with the addition of a single card. It also claims the smaller size of the tower – essentially a single metal pole anchored to a concrete footprint the size of an office chair, makes it more attractive for roll-out on resort islands concerned about the visual impact of a conventional lattice structure mobile tower.

Aslam, speaking at the resort during the launch, told media that the support of foreign corporations such as Wataniya that had invested in the Maldives was a key part of the Maldives’ meeting its carbon neutral commitment by by 2020. Although details of how the country can efficiently meet its 2020 target remain elusive beyond broad political support for investment in green technology and renewable energy, President Mohamed Nasheed said last year that failure to meet the goals would be a “disaster” for the country in ensuring long-term stability both economically and geologically.

Despite the adoption of the new technology at Adaaran’s Hudhuranfushi resort, Ali Rilwan, Executive Director of local environmental NGO Bluepeace told Minivan News that he believed that the Maldives’ tourist resorts’ general commitment to effective sustainable practices was not limited to green technology and day-to-day issues like waste management.

Rilwan claimed that although tourist regulations did tend to be stricter in regards to the amount of natural land being developed and not allowing buildings to tower over an island’s tallest trees, other viable development areas included solar and renewable energy technologies.

“I think very few resorts are taking responsibility. Waste management is another vital area and only a few resorts have sewage treatment plants rather than pumping it into the ocean,” he said. “Some [resorts] are also not disposing of their garbage correctly either so they hire local boats to transport garbage to the island of Thilafushi.  In some cases management may be unaware that some boats travel just a few hours off shore and then dump trash in the sea without travelling all the way to Thilafushi.”

Despite his concerns Rilwan said that he saw developments such as those taken by Wataniya to introduce more energy efficient equipment like the RAN towers as a “good move” to cut environmental impact, although he believed the company’s spending on sustainable developments could be widened to a number of areas.

He pointed to telecommunications companies fully replacing plastic cards used by customers to recharge their mobile phone credit or looking at alternatives to spending on billboard advertising and promotions and simpler activities like planting more trees.

“Each resort is required to be working on projects like planting trees,” he said. “These companies could instead use their funding to do very visible commitments like plant coconut trees around islands.”

Perhaps more unlikely, Rilwan stated that Wataniya and its competitors such as Dhiraagu could also consider sharing and maintaining telecommunication commitment together to try and cut down on the space and energy requirements in supplying separate services to Maldivian customers.

With local councils elected into office in February, Rilwan said that he expected more visible measures and local projects to be managed to help local islands in boosting their sustainability.

Speaking to Minivan News in October, environmental organisation Greenpeace said it believed the Maldives acted more as a symbol than a practical demonstration of how national development and fighting climate change can be mutually exclusive.

Wendel Trio, the organisation’s Climate Policy and Global Deal Coordinator, said he believed that the Maldives could nonetheless play an iconic role in promoting the potential benefits of adopting alternate energy programmes.

“By coupling both strong words and the need for the big emitting countries in the developed and the developing world to reduce their emissions sharply, with a strong commitment at home, the Maldives has also gained respect,” Trio explained to Minivan News. “However, obviously none of the big emitting countries are looking at the Maldives as an example, as they all claim that their social and economic development cannot be compared to that of a small island state.”

He accepted that the country was somewhat limited by its size but said it could have play a role in advocating for more sustainable business and lifestyle practices.

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Resorts must now invest after not doing enough for security, says MATI

Tourism insiders say that the industry has not done enough to provide security at the country’s resorts as authorities, while security officials and businesses continue to work on outlining new protective measures for properties across the country.

As security officials continue to await the outcomes from consultations by a steering group formed following a security seminar and workshop held last week to outline methods to reduce possible threats facing the country’s resorts, some property owners and managers appear divided over the severity of the challenges faced.

Speaking to Minivan News, ‘Sim’ Mohamed Ibrahim from the Maldives Association of Tourism Industry (MATI) said that despite ongoing attempts to outline a nationwide resort security initiative since 2008, no such policy had as yet been put in place.

Following last week’s security seminars, Sim said he was confident that by working with the Maldives National Defense Force (MNDF), the police, and the coastguard, progress was now being made in outlining long-term security strategies for tourism. He conceded though that the industry would need to bare more of the financial brunt to protect its interests in the future.

“Resorts do need more investment in regards to security, we haven’t done enough so far,” said the MATI head.

Sim said that last week’s seminar reflected growing industry concerns of late raised by the active Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture as well as industry bodies over protecting the country’s lucrative resort islands from possible theft and attack.

The country has this year alone faced two isolated, yet high-profile incidences of intrusion at properties such as Kihaadhuffaru resort and Baros Island Resort and Spa highlighting for some the magnitude of the threats facing the country.

Sim claimed that these concerns were not an “isolated” issue for tourist properties alone, but rather a symptom of rising levels of crime on inhabited islands such as the Maldivian capital of Male’ that had spilled onto resorts.

“This is not to say that the government is working on this issue [of crime], but really they need better laws in the country for offenders,” he claimed.

To try and combat fears over criminals targeting resorts, the MATI Secretary-General said he believed that improved networking between different resorts and ease of communication was a vital part of limiting potential attacks in the future.  He added that the closer cooperation between tourism officials and the police and armed forces in the country was also seen as another key aim.

However, Sim claimed that rather than bringing wide-ranging reforms to tourist and resort security, the country would be better prioritising commitments in areas where it was able to ensure effective changes could be put in place.

He added that a committee containing government and tourism industry figures was now working to address what sort of commitments should be prioritised on the back of last week’s security seminar.

“The best thing to come from these talks is that we are now attempting to work together [with the government and security forces]. We know we are not alone as an industry,” he said. “In the past, we have tended not to mix the leisure side of holidays with security, but this is something that we need to do.”

Security advisor

Speaking today to Minivan News, National Security Advisor Ameen Faisal said that he still haven’t received feedback from the steering committee of government and industry figures regarding outlining new proposals for resort security.

While Faisal added that he was not sure of the exact nature that potential changes could mean for how defence forces worked with the tourism industry, he was convinced it would not lead to a rise in their presence on resort islands.

“Personally, I don’t think operational changes will be seen in the manner that police and the MNDF operate regarding tourism,” he said. “There will probably be some training programmes conducted by police for resort security, but I don’t think we will see a physical presence by defence forces at these resorts.”

In addressing any perceived threats posed by Maldivian gang crime reaching the isolated environs of the country’s tourist properties, not all resort groups appeared to have share MATI’s beliefs that security problems were generated solely by offshore criminals.

One general manager for a leading multinational brand of resorts in the country said under anonymity that he believed the resort robberies were more likely to have resulted from serving or former employees with knowledge of the properties than from random attacks by gangs or opportunistic thieves.

In taking this view, the general manager said that he believed it was often imperative to try and effectively manage staff and their grievances that could often occur from very small and often easily rectified measures.

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Dollar shortage threatens to ground local airline sales

Sales agents for some international airlines operating in and out of the Maldives have said that a lack of US dollars circulating within the economy is causing concerns, and in some cases, temporary cessation of their day-to-day operations.

Galaxy Enterprises, which operates as a general sales agent for Sri Lankan Airlines in the country has said that it has temporarily stopped selling airline tickets in the country. The group have forwarded potential customers to the Sri Lankan Airlines official website to process booking requests.

The announcement comes as financial institutions like the Bank of Maldives concede that the high level of imported goods bought into the economy are not being matched by US dollar generating industries inside the Maldives. The bank has said that the disparity had created a “lag” in terms of supply and demand for the currency.

The situation this week led to police – with the assistance of the Madives Monetary Authority (MMA) – trying to crackdown on sales of the country’s US currency beyond the pegged rate of Rf12.75 per dollar at black market rates as high as Rf16.

In the statement issued by Galaxy Enterprises and printed in newspaper Haveeru today, the group said it had been forced to suspend sales of Sri Lankan Airlines flights as it was not receiving sufficient US dollars through the banks to pay the airlines after selling tickets to its customers in rufiyaa. The group said that it will resume selling Sri Lankan Airlines tickets once the dollar shortage was perceived to have “eased”.

Galaxy Enterprises is not alone in witnessing operational difficulties as a result of the state of the nation’s finances.

Tyronne Soza, Maldives Country Manager for Mack Air Services Maldives, which represents the local interests of multinational aviation group John Keells Airlines, said that dollar supply was a major concern for its operations, although it continues to sell tickets.

“We are having some issues with obtaining and paying in dollars right now. As we are part of the John Keells group we have been able to manage the situation though,” Soza said. “It’s illegal to charge customers in dollars and obviously we accept rufiya, but it is difficult.”

John Keells serves as a holding company for aviation groups link Jet Airways and Sri Lanka-based Mihin Lanka.

Not all operators have shared these currency concerns though, with senior management for one of the world’s highest profile airlines, which works through Universal Enterprises in the country, claiming it was “business as usual” despite reports of dollar concerns amidst some competitors.

Last week, Peter Horton, the recently appointed CEO of Bank of Maldives told Minivan News that he believed the country desperately needed new ways of creating a US dollar income to try and overcome the crisis.

“A reality of the economy is that we are importing so very much, and we have so few dollar generating industries. In very simple terms, any downturn in the economy incur losses in the economy when turnover drops below break-even level. That is where we are as an economy – our revenue in dollar terms, in terms of the imports we require, is lagging,” the CEO, a British national, claimed.

“We need to look at ways of keeping dollars in the country as much as possible. [A] number of entitites are taking money out of the country – and are free to do so without exchange control. I think we also need to look at other ways of enhancing dollar revenues through fresh or new industries – and I would include financial services among those industries.”

Horton added that the issue had been compounded by economic uncertainty within international financial markets during the last few years, representing a massive national challenge that needed to be overcome.

However, police attempts to crack down on potential black market dollar sales are claimed by some low-wage expatriate workers to have exacerbated difficulties faced in trying to transfer and provide funds abroad.

Many of the country’s 100,000 foreign workers, particularly a large percentage of labourers from Bangladesh, are paid in Maldivian rufiya by their employers and are forced to change the money on the blackmarket at rates often higher than the government’s pegged rate of Rf12.85, before sending the money to their families.

The set dollar rate in the Maldives is Rf12.75, however during the dollar shortage it has increased to 13, 14, 15 and sometimes even as high as 16 on the black market.

However, banks routinely refuse to change rufiya into dollars, and experts have claimed that the crackdown will do little to address the demand for foreign currency or the budget deficit, which has led to the pegged rate not reflecting the value of the rufiya.

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Maldives invites royal wedding couple to honeymoon in the sun

Tourism authorities in the Maldives have sent an official invitation to Britain’s Prince William and his future wife Kate Middleton to travel to the Maldives for their honeymoon following the royal wedding, scheduled for April 29.

Minister of Foreign Affairs Ahmed Naseem confirmed a formal invitation had been sent to British authorities, and that the Ministry was awaiting a response to the offer.

State Tourism Minister Thoyyib Waheed told Minivan News that the invite was sent through diplomatic channels in the hopes that the high-profile royal couple would opt to honeymoon in the country,  an offer he claimed  would be “a great honour for the Maldives” and its international reputation if accepted.

“It is a dream for any destination to be considered as a venue [for the royal honeymoon],” he said.  “With this invite, we hope there is a possibility it may happen.”

Bookkeepers in the UK are offering odds of 14:1 that the couple will choose the Maldives as their honeymoon destination, with other contenders including Sicily, The Seychelles, Kenya, Bermuda, and even Australia.

The wedding of Prince William, who is second in line to the British throne, has drawn massive levels of press coverage since the forthcoming nuptials of the country’s potential future king and his girlfriend were announced in November 2010.

Since that announcement, a wealth of companies, organisations and media outlets have moved to associate themselves with the huge international interest in what may become one of the year’s most viewed events.  From speculation over final designs for the wedding cake and bridal dress to the quality of commemorative crockery, all have become major headlines in the run up to event in the UK press.

The ceremony itself will take place at London’s Westminster Abbey on April 29. The UK government has declared the day a public holiday in honour of the royal couple.

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“Very bad” time for Maldivian youth: Parties talk crime, activism and opportunity

Ahead of an election contesting the first presidency for the Maldivian Democratic Party’s (MDP) youth arm later this month, standing candidates and opposition politicians claim the country is at a critical juncture to ensure its largest demographic is not denied a voice and role a within national development.

The MDP is trying to attract a sizable youth vote in the next election, and has mimicked the opposition Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) by establishing a Youth Wing to outline policies and opinion from the perspective of younger voters. Serving opposition party youth representatives claim that the country’s twenty-somethings are keen supporters of hard line measures to offset fears of gang culture and its perceived prominence among their peers.

Alongside the upcoming elections for MDP President scheduled for April 30, members will also be given a vote for selecting a candidate to represent young people in the party.

The candidates include Hussain Waheed, serving councilor for Medhu Henveiru Lufshan Shakeeb in Male’, and former Minivan News journalist now working in the President’s Office,  Aminath Shauna.

According to Shauna, statistics show that the largest age group in the Maldives is represented by 20 to 24 years of age, followed closely by citizens aged between 25 to 29 years. Despite this apparent numerical prominence, she believes that for over 30 years there have been a scarce number of programmes to prepare young people of working age to responsibly lead initiatives or to take part in higher education beyond a minority of people, setting back the role of young people in the Maldives democratic transition.

For MP Ahmed Malouf, who is responsible for the Youth Wing for the opposition DRP, the appointment comes at a “very bad” period of time for young Maldivians, particularly in relation to gang violence and crime.

The DRP MP told Minivan News that after having previously spent nine years in the Ministry of Youth, he believed that long-standing gang violence between young people in the country had further intensified of late, creating an environment that have made the streets of Male’ unsafe for both local people and foreigners at night.

Mahloof said that having spoken and met with a wide sway of young people from across Maldivian society, the issue of gang violence had arisen as a foremost challenge to his work as Youth Wing head for the DRP.

“We need to find a way to save young people and give them a way out of this [gang] lifestyle,” he said. “Often they become trapped and are unable to get out even if they want to.”

As part of his attempts to appeal to young voters, Mahlouf said he has pressed ahead with promoting tighter legislation. This legislation includes an amendment sent to parliament last month to alter the age by which young people were recognised by the law as an adult to 16, as opposed to the current age of 18.

The MP has claimed the amendments, which have attracted criticism from some human rights bodies, were designed to try and reduce youth crime by ensuring young people suspected of engaging in serious crimes would be treated as adults and face full responsibility for their actions.

”The purpose of changing the age is due to the significant increase in the involvement of minors in crimes sinister in nature, and they cannot be sentenced to the full extent as they are considered minors,” said Mahlouf after announcing his proposed amendments. ”Although they are considered as minors, they are sometimes very dangerous.”

In addition, Mahlouf said he has also forwarded amendments to the Act on the Prohibition of Gang Violence to the Majlis in an attempt to remove the right for suspects linked to police investigations into gang violence to remain silent and for release from custody, providing judges with the power to enforce such restrictions.

To try and finalise these aims, the DRP Youth Wing head claimed that he did not wish to politicise the need to address gang issues and was calling on Maldivians to pressurise all parliamentarians – regardless of party – to pass pending legislation relating to crime needed to curb what he believed was a worsening gang situation.

Mahlouf claimed that having consulted with young artists, including local musicians, he was aware there were also issues of a lack of alternative amenities and youth centres available for young people to engage in nationally.

“From what I have seen things are going backward here. Young people I have spoken to, including musicians in rock bands, say they are fed up,” he said. “Services aren’t being delivered and gang violence is at a very high level, we need to talk with them and find solutions.”

Although critical of the role that the Ministry of Human Resources, Youth and Sports was playing in trying to overcome these alleged concerns, Mahlouf conceded that government and parliament alone could not shoulder the responsibility to overcome gang problems, claiming parents and families also needed to take responsibility and a role.

From an MDP perspective, Shauna claimed that she believed the party, through activism and campaigning, had been a vital part of bringing young people into national politics through democratic reform over the last few years. However, she conceded that the sufficient challenges facing young people in the Maldives had meant it was now vital to address the difficulties beyond partisan political thinking.

“The time is now to act. We have to put pressure on the government. We have to put pressure on political parties, on the MDP, the National Council and everyone to help us develop a youth programme to make us better people and a part of the whole [national] development process,” she said. “We have to provide opportunities and make sure there are things besides going to work and drinking cups of coffee everyday. What I mean specifically is that we have to have entertainment opportunities as well as jobs.”

“Desperately needed”

Shauna claimed that rather than being seen as a token position within the party, the MDP Youth president was “desperately needed” to play a vital role in outlining policies for young voters that directly affect their future – something she believed was currently missing from the party.

“Over 50 percent of the MDP’s membership is under the age of 35, so we cannot move forward without their opinions, without their input and without really developing people of our age,” she said.

“The few people who make decisions are older and they are not the majority of the country. This is alright, but then again you have the middle management sector who are not very prepared to do what is needed right now,” Shauna added. “There is so much work to do in terms of nation building and state building to do. Yet the majority of the civil service are saying that they have just barely finished high school. This is the kind of environment that we are having to develop from. It is a hard thing to do and a lot of the time, younger people are only doing simple things, administrative things, like drafting letters, that is it.”

At present, Shauna claimed that even in politics, the involvement of young people was generally consigned to putting up posters and going out on the streets, while there remained an apparent lack of activism and representatives responsibly speaking out about the needs of their peers in relation to developing democracy and human rights.

“Very few young people have been trained or have been given the tools to achieve these things,” she said.”I think it’s imperative that we have a voice and a group that advocates for training, scholarships and entertainment opportunities. Unfortunately the only thing that is discussed about youth is the violence and the drugs and crime.”

Shauna’s fellow MDP Youth Wing candidates, Hussain Waheed and Lufshan Shakeeb, were contacted to outline their positions but had not responded to Minivan News at time of press.

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Addressing “disenfranchised” youth key to strengthening Maldives resort security, claims president

Consultations between the police, government and tourism insiders continued today aimed at boosting resort security in the Maldives following recent robberies, with President Nasheed calling for additional support to address societal crime.

Tourism authorities in the country have said that the security seminar forms part of plans to try and proactively reduce the “internal and external” threats facing the country’s scattered array of island resorts.  This is seen as increasingly important amidst growing concerns over industry preparedness for potential criminal attacks.

President Mohamed Nasheed opened the security seminar yesterday calling for the travel industry and authorities to not just focus on immediate solutions to protect resort customers and staff, but also to address the perceived root causes of national crime.  Limited jobs and education opportunities for young people were highlighted by Nasheed as examples of the potential problems needed to be faced in Maldivian society to alleviate some of the causes of crime.

Police authorities have told Minivan News that the exact changes to be implemented as a result of the two-day security seminar could not be detailed yet as consultations between different authorities and organisations were ongoing.

President Nasheed said at the inauguration of the seminar that two prominent incidences of intrusion at properties such as Kihaadhuffaru resort and Baros Island Resort and Spa this year alone highlighted the “magnitude” of the threats facing the country.

While accepting that the tourism industry and the government could protect resorts against future intrusions by heightening security though measures such as introducing barriers, Nasheed claimed that there are wider social problems that also needed to be addressed.

Along with outlining new security measures, Nasheed used his speech to call on the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture, industry insiders, the Maldives National Defence Force (MNDF) and law enforcement authorities to include plans to try and combat societal issues such as gang violence, theft and drug abuse that he linked with the “unemployed, uneducated and disenfranchised youth in the country”.

Nasheed claimed that these concerns were the root cause of the problems facing the resort industry in combating criminal threats.

The president’s claims echoed concerns raised by the tourism industry last week by groups like the Maldives Association of Travel Agents and Tour Operators (MATATO), which called for immediate measures to address the potential threats of gang crime, piracy and terrorism at resorts.  The association said that it did accept that a relatively low number of security breaches that have occurred so far.

MATATO Secretary General Mohamed Maleeh Jamal nonetheless said that the entire industry would need to face up to addressing preparatory measures for resort security as it outlines a fourth tourism master plan that will cover the sector’s work from 2012 onwards. The current masterplan is said to relate to vital initiatives to develop the country’s travel industry from 2007 up until this year.

“We fear there is a big challenge ahead related to security,” said Jamal at the time.

Dr Mariyam Zulfa, Maldivian Minister for Tourism, Arts and Culture, also told Minivan News that she believed that rising levels of national crime and violence were beginning to impact the country’s secluded resort business. The Maldives tourism industry has this year witnessed a number of isolated criminal incidents at its resorts culminating last month in an attempted robbery at Baros Island Resort and Spa and the death of one of the alleged attackers.

Zulfa claimed that in the interests of trying to proactively protect the industry, authorities had been “working for some time” on developing new measures to protect resorts and bolster existing security systems that are in place in the country.

The tourism minister added the government alone could not handle the entire burden of dealing with security challenges alone.  She claimed though that various stakeholders – from resort companies to airport operators – had so far been very cooperative in trying to ensure they were not “easy” potential targets for criminal attacks.

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CSC says Shakir retirement not linked to Facebook sex photo scandal

The Civil Service Commission (CSC) has said that its decision to retire a former Director General of Male’ Municipality on his request was not linked to his suspension over a police investigation into his alleged appearance in the Facebook blackmail images.

CSC Director General Abdulla Saeed said that despite the suspension of Adam Shakir in relation to his alleged inclusion in graphic images obtained by a suspected online blackmail ring, the decision had been taken to grant his retirement and all related benefits as he had not been found guilty.

“Shakir requested to the commission (CSC) that he retire at his current age of 58 and according to the Maldivian Civil Service Act he was eligible to do so,” he said. “When the CSC got the request we decided to retire him.”

The Director General position at Male’ Municipality has since been changed to the title of secretariat for Male’ City Council.

Pointing to the Civil Service Act that outlines regulation for public sector employees, Saeed said that it was possible to retire staff once they reached 55 years of age. He added that Shakir’s suspension in relation to an ongoing police investigation had not impacted on this decision to grant retirement or his right to receive benefits as a result.

A number of high profile government and public figures are reportedly suspected of being depicted in the images already thought to be circulating the internet, although the CSC claimed it would not be acting on allegations alone.

“There is no relation between the suspension and the retirement decision. Shakir was suspended on information we had received but this has not gone to court yet and does not mean that he is guilty [of the allegations],” the CSC director general added. “Normally after a police investigation, it is for the court to decide whether a suspect is guilty.”

Newspaper Haveeru yesterday claimed that retirement had been granted on the grounds of the suspended civil servant’s health.

Although the investigation over the legitimacy of the alleged indecent images was continuing, Saeed said that Shakir was no longer a civil servant following his retirement and that there would not be a review of the decision to grant retirement benefits following the outcome of any potential trial in the future.

Blackmail investigation

The investigation into the alleged Facebook blackmail scandal has not yet led to any arrests regarding those alleged to have obtained or appeared in the images, though police have stressed that they are continuing to look into the case.

Police Sub Inspector Ahmed Shiyam told Minivan News today that officers were unable to confirm the identity of any individuals under investigation on suspicion of involvement or inclusion in the videos and images due to the “complex nature” of the potential crimes. However, Shiyam confirmed that the CSC has sent information to the police that is was currently looking into as part of its investigations.

On Saturday, the Maldives Police Service confirmed that it was now holding four individuals in custody over their suspected involvement in the alleged plot to blackmail high profile figures with graphic images obtained via social network site Facebook after releasing another three suspects as part of its investigation.

The case first came to light in February, when police revealed that 14 individuals including a minor had been arrested on suspicion of obtaining hundreds of nude pictures and videos that were stored on computers and external hard drives. It was alleged that these images had been obtained through fake Facebook profiles that used the identical image of a young woman.

Police said at the time that two profiles with the names of ‘Lyshiaa Limanom’ and ‘Angelic Sharrown’ respectively were used by the suspects to gather files of individuals pictured in some cases performing explicit acts in the presence of minors. Investigators stated that they would also be investigating people pictured in the files to verify if any crimes had actually been committed within the images themselves.

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