Day: February 7, 2010

Father and son stabbed in Hulumale’ after prayer

A 15 year old boy and his 35 year old father were attacked and stabbed by gang members at Hulhumale’ on Thursday around 8:15pm.

Police said they were attacked near Hulhumale’ flat number 13, on their way home after Isha prayer.

They were both injured and taken to Male’ immediately for medical treatment.

Police said they do not have information about the severity of the injuries.

Police have arrested one man in connection with the case, who is said to have a lengthy record with the police.

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Five men arrested with weapons cache set free

Five out of six men who were arrested with a variety of weapons, including knives, swords and bats, have been released due to lack of evidence.

The head of the Serious and Organised Crime unit, Inspector Ahmed Saudhy, said the six men were arrested on 4 February when they were discovered in possession of the weapons and other items believed stolen.

The sixth man had been previously convicted and sentenced, but had escaped from prison. He is still in custody.

Saudhy alleged the six men were hiding with the stored weapons in G. Masodi, a house closely linked to the gang known by the same name.

The weapons were allegedly used to carry out assaults and robberies, while the items were mainly motorcycle parts and tools. Police Inspector Ahmed Jamsheed said that the police had recently received reports about missing motorcycle parts, much like the ones found in Masodi, which are believed to be stolen.

”We believe these people are involved in gang fights and other serious crimes,” Saudhy said.

Furthermore, police said that while they try their best to arrest criminals, they “regret” that some people help to save them from prison.

Jamsheed said the stolen items will be returned to their rightful owner when the person contacts the police.

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Dispute over delay in medical help for dead Maafushi inmate

Concern has been raised about the delay in medical treatment given to an inmate in Maafushi jail, who died in custody yesterday.

The Director General of the Department of Penitentiary and Rehabilitation Services (DPRS), Mohamed Rasheed, said Hassan Ahmed, from Gan Mukuri Magu of Laamu atoll, died of a heart attack.

Rasheed said the 29 year old had been jailed for 25 years for using and selling drugs, but ”was a trusted and good man who was selected to work as jail staff.”

”We got a report at 2:00pm and our jail officers attended to him after four to five minutes,” he said, adding that Hassan was taken to the prison’s doctor immediately.

“He did not have any recorded medical conditions, and had just come back from work to pray and have lunch.”

However a source familiar with the matter told Minivan News that the jail officers only attended to the man two hours after they were informed about the incident.

The source also claimed that Hassan had informed the jail officers at 12:24pm, before noon prayers, that he had been having chest pains since breakfast, although by then it was not severe.

”But after the noon prayers his pain got more serious, so [the inmates] knocked on the gates and shouted. Police officers attended after some time, and [the inmates] told them about the man and they replied that the doctor had gone for lunch,” the source said.

”Nobody can stop a man from dying, but they could have treated him. They did not take it seriously, they even had the time to take him Male’,” he added.

He said Hassan was dead by the time the officers arrived at 2:10pm to transfer him, and criticised the DPRS and TVM for reporting that jail officers had attended “very quickly.”

Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) MP Ilham Ahmed said ”We are very disappointed that again someone died [in custody] after the death of Mohamed Nooz.”

Rumours around the circumstances of Nooz’s death sparked a protest outside MDNF headquarters and the president’s residence on 28 January.

Ilham claimed he had received information that Hassan had died after reporting a serious pain in his chest since that morning, and ”nobody cared to give him even a single paracetamol tablet.”

Ilham also said he had received information from Maafushi jail that ”the police did not follow procedure; they have to check the dead body and take photographs.”

Hassan was buried last night. Rasheed said a letter had been sent to his parents asking if they would like a post mortem examination conducted. Hassan’s family had not yet responded to the letter, Rasheed said.

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‘Those Who Desire Heaven’

English translation (abridged) of a sermon given on the evening of 29 Jan by Sheikh Ilyas Hussain, renowned Islamic scholar and vice-president of the Adaalaath party’s scholar’s council.

Youth, please pay attention! There will be rivers of wine and honey in Heaven. Heaven-dwellers are divided into 100 ranks. Aspire for the highest rank which is Firdous because God’s throne itself sits over it.

Wine is prohibited in this life. But because it is legal [in Heaven], the wine of Heaven does not leave you with nausea, trips to the toilet, intoxication or even headaches.

There will be comfortable couches, which can be adjusted, couches made of gold and precious stones. And young lads of infinite beauty will come to you with cups of wine taken from streams. They are eternally youthful and like golden pearls.

You can get any fruit you want and however much you want to consume. Birds, fried and put on trays — they come and present themselves for you to eat.

God gave this commandment to you from Seven Heavens above: to aspire for Heaven.

Whatever you want, you will be given. You will all be guests of God.

If you are not satisfied, there’s only room for relaxing there. There will be Houris (‘black-eyed beautiful Virgins’) protected like golden pearls. Please calm down a bit, beloved sisters! What is a Houri made of? Three things: the bottom part is made of musk, the middle part is made of ambergris, and the upper part is made of Camphor. Their hair and eyebrows are black in color, they are as beautiful as rubies and coral.

Wine taken, fruits eaten and your heart is content, then you are given a Houri — calming on the eyes, content for the heart, and relaxing to the body.

In Heaven, no idle sounds will be heard, no noises will be heard that will lead you to become a criminal, only Peace will be heard.

Please calm down from now, beloved Sisters. Don’t ask me questions. You may ask: For you Houris; what for us? Now listen to what God has to say: You will be recreated anew. How will you be resurrected in Heaven? As virgins. Not satisfied still? God says further: You will be recreated as wives made to love their husbands, of same age, having no chance of aging ever.

What is Kaub? It is something that is erected. Forgive me but this is going to be a technical discussion. Kaaba (House of God in Mecca) is also called that because it is erected from the ground. The shin is also called Kaub because it grows straight out of the legs. Just like that, women in their full prime will have their may-mathi (breasts) pointing out.

They will have the same age. What age? Heaven-dwellers will enter there in the prime of their beauty: 33 years of age. 33 years is the age at which youth reaches prime. You will be eternally 33 years of age in Heaven; whether a 100 years pass or so you will still be 33 eternally. Height? 60 ‘muh’ (‘muh’ in Dhivehi is equal to 18 inches), in Adam’s image, everyone will be, there will be no one old.

So what’s the story about the wives we have on Earth? They will be many times more beautiful than a Houri. So no questions there. If you pray the five obligatory daily prayers, and fast when you are obliged to fast, and are faithful and obedient to your husband, there will be eight gates open at Paradise, so please enter from the gate of your choosing. More beautiful than Houris.

Then there will arise the question of jealousy. But in the Afterlife there are no such issues for God has said that he will get rid of the jealous streak in your heart. Then they will reside on the couches, one being considerate towards the other, and they will live on peacefully as if siblings. There will be no jealousy. No petty conflicts. There will be no issues rising among second, third or fourth wife, as you experience in this world. You only get to enter Heaven only after being cleansed of such inconveniences. In Heaven there will be only satisfaction and happiness and there will be nothing that troubles the heart. God is Great. That is Heaven.

Now let’s take a look at shopping in Heaven. But wait a minute, now youth will be wondering about this: what about going to the toilet after eating and drinking? Beloved brothers, there will be no toilet in Heaven. Why is that? A water will be given and after you drink it, a kind of bloat will leave through the mouth. It will smell like musk, no bad smell at all. It won’t be a Paradise of Blessings if we have to go to the toilet over and over again.

When you go shopping in Heaven, there will be no need for money or any need to actually buy anything. There will be no money in Heaven. They will go shopping every Friday. Why? To buy anything? No, to roam around for the heart’s content. A breeze from the north of Heaven will affect their faces and their clothes, and extra beauty will be added to them. When they return with such added beauty, their house-folk will say to them: “Every day your beauty increases.”

There will be no hospital. There will be no falling ill — ever. There will be no death — only living for Eternity. No ageing but eternal sustenance of youth.

Are you happy, Heaven-dwellers? What more do we need? Should I give you something more noble? What is better than this? God has said that today I am bestowing my approval and from today onwards will never resent my followers. Do you have a difficulty in seeing the Full Moon? Any difficulty in seeing the sun on a cloudless sky? Just like that you will see God through the naked eye. That will be the greatest gift you get in Heaven than this — seeing God’s self in his full glory.

Let’s see about the last one who gets to enter Paradise. He will walk, he will crawl, he will be surrounded by fire (as he comes out of Hell). The person who is in the least ranks of Heaven-dwellers will have in service 80,000 servants, 82 women, 100 people’s strength and after intercourse, (she) will always be re-virginised.

This is a gift I bring to those who desire heaven. We have a short time. We have only this Earthly temporary life to correct and through this key we get to enter Heaven and once we enter, there is no boredom and no difficulties. So use your youth to work towards this.

If you want to live your life’s days according to God’s way, you must lower your gaze, control what you hear with the ear, keep in check the actions committed by your hands and feet; do not say a sorry word at your brothers-in-faith and not raise a weapon against him; your tongue has to be kept in check. The tongue is soft and small but most people get to enter Hell due to misuse of the tongue. A person’s undoing is misuse of his tongue and private parts. A person who has protected these two parts are ensured a place in Heaven. Two angels will write every word you utter; you will be given a balance sheet of the actions you committed. If you want Heaven’s wine, give up Earth’s wine. You will get clothes made from silk.

Those who cut off blood relations, why be petty and jealous and give up Eternal Happiness? Compete and try to excel towards that. Why do we lose ourselves in temporary Earthly pleasures? This is a prison; this is the Unbeliever’s Paradise. We need to wake ourselves up for Dawn prayer. We have to make our children pray before they go to school in the morning.

Original speech located here

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Umar Naseer to take EC to court over decision to retain IDP

Former president of the Islamic Democratic Party (IDP) Umar Naseer, who recently joined the Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP), has announced he intends take the Elections Commission (EC) to court over its decision not to allow the disbanding of the IDP.

Umar left the IDP last month to further his political career, claiming there was “no future” in being president of such a small party. He claimed a “the majority” of the IDP wished to disband the party altogether.

However, Deputy President of the IDP, Mohamed Hassan Manik, said the majority of the members disagreed and believed that the IDP “can still be run as a viable and independent political party.”

Umar’s decision to abandon the party, he suggested, was made “because it will be easier for him to try and become president of the Maldives [in the DRP].”

Meanwhile, the EC ruled that Naseer’s decision to disband the IDP was not valid under the party’s own regulations and that it could continue to exist as a political entity, following an investigation of what the EC’s president Fuad Thaufeeq described as “a big mess.”

“We found that the number of persons in the executive committee required to be present at a meeting to change a rule was not satisfied,” he said. “This is according to their rules.”

According to Thaufeeq, the decision to dissolve the party was taken at a meeting where less than the required 50 per cent of the executive committee were present.

“We looked at the minutes and percentage attendances at the meetings and found this regulation was not strictly followed, and is why we do not conisder Umar Naseer’s decision to dissolve the party to be valid.”

Thaufeeq said it was Naseer’s right to take the matter to court, and acknowledged that while this would be very expensive for the independent commission, “we don’t have any option.”

“There are two groups within IDP. One is with Umar Naseer, the other is against him,” Thaufeeq said. “I have no clue how this will be resolved without going to court, because regardless of our decision either group will take us to court.”

Naseer had not responded to Minivan News’ request for comment at time of press.

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Taliban in paradise – what awaits these virgin islands?

The first war of the twenty first century, US President George W Bush said after 11 September 2001, will be “a new kind of war”. It will be “a conflict without battlefields or beachheads”.

Well, almost 10 years on, we can see he was a bit off the mark with the battlefields – Afghanistan is one, Iraq another, Iran is a strong possibility, Yemen cannot be ruled out entirely. Some of us foresaw the prospects for disaster in many a decision made by President Bush before he blundered, swaggered or smirked his way into them. But I bet no one foresaw that he could also be wrong about the beachheads.

There could yet be many a beachhead in the ‘War on Terror’. Hundreds of them. Around nice pristine Maldivian beaches. The Taliban were “smoked out” of the caves in Afghanistan – will they be fished out of our waters, or simply blasted out? And at what cost to our lives? In Afghanistan the civilian death toll was over 2000 in 2008 alone… what fate awaits us?

Safety first

“Taliban feels that the safest place in the world for them right now is the Maldives”. Less than a decade after the world’s strongest military power declares war on not just the ‘terrorists’ – but also on those who “harbour them, feed them, house them, encourage them, and comfort them” – the Maldives offers them a peaceful retreat. With no military power to speak of, being of little or no geo-strategic consequence, not quite the most sophisticated of movers in global realpolitik – we go ahead and provide the Taliban a beautiful sanctuary where they can sit and plan their next move, with nothing to fear except perhaps a wayward coconut.

The government response to the discovery of the Maldives’ novel status as the Taliban’s new BFFL (best friend for life) is to tell us it is a compliment. A compliment, dear citizens. Pluralism personified, the New Maldives – a Taliban sanctuary, where religious extremists are a protected species. Follow the government line of thinking on this, people and you begin to see the advantages. Given the burgeoning numbers of people following their brand of Islam, we might not have to hang up our tourism hat just yet. There is an untapped market with huge potential out there. Think of the ads – “Tired of being vilified? Find unconditional adulation in the Maldives”; “Sick of being loathed? Come and feel the warmth of the Maldivian embrace”. “Sun, sea and blind faith”; “Maldives – no bad news, no bombs”.

Countering terror

A week later, and the same government is about to formalise a counter-terrorism agreement with India. The same government spokesperson that told us to be flattered by Taliban’s friendship, tells us that the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to be signed with India is “very important because it gives notice that the Maldives will not allow terrorist operations here.”

I beg to differ. The MoU is to be welcomed, if there is anything the Maldives can do to help shore up the security of the exemplary democracy that is India, we should to it. But, the agreement does not in anyway signal to us Maldivians that “the Maldives will not allow terrorist operations”.

How can that be, when the government is positively preening from the Taliban’s exclusive attentions; and continues to form subversive and inexplicable alliances with political parties and dubious NGOs who are making Maldivians look, speak, behave, eat, have sex, punish and procreate according to the teachings of the Taliban?

What the MoU, coming as it does on foot of the government’s warm embrace of the Taliban, signals to us is that this government does not have a cogent or coherent national security policy. It is being formed on ad hoc basis, according to whatever political interests that needs to be served at a given time. We can sign hundreds of agreements, treaties and conventions. On paper, it makes the Maldives look good. But for the people who are living this enforced politicization of their religious beliefs, and being told to see this sea-change in Maldivian culture and identity as ‘pluralism’, it signals impending disaster, and a government that is unable to see the threat from within.

The Maldivian government was unaware of the Taliban hosting secret talks on our islands or was unable to detect their presence in the country because it can no longer tell the difference between a Maldivian and an Afghan, or any other follower of the Wahhabbi sect for that matter. We cannot tell who is Ibrahim Maniku and who is Abdul-Ibrahim bin Abu Muharram, or whatever other name we are now apparently required to have in order to be Muslims.

While the government was busy allying itself with religious parties for political gains and shoring up sandbags to ward off sea-level rise, we have all been turned into sheep in Muslim clothing, following blindly those who have assumed leading roles in remote islands through their preaching and their sermons, filling a leadership vacuum left by the appointment of so-called councilors as a reward for faithful campaigning regardless of their qualifications or lack thereof.

One of the biggest questions asked of the disastrous last government was how and why heroin was allowed to permeate the very core of Maldivian society. How could the authorities not stop the destructive drug being smuggled into this small island nation? Well, Wahhabism is the new heroin. It has got our youth addicted, it has robbed them of their identity and it has taken possession of them to the exclusion of all else. Why is this government allowing this to happen? No amount of posturing on the international stage, or pieces of paper signed promising our co-operation in the ‘War on Terror’ is going to be sufficient to protect Maldivians themselves from being sucked into this ‘endless war’ that has already claimed so many lives in every corner of the world.

Anti-terror agreements signed with one hand while holding the door open for the Taliban with the other are going to be ineffective, otiose. What will a Memorandum of Understanding with a foreign ally, however well-intentioned, do for our own protection when we have yet to understand that the biggest threat we face is within?

Munirah Moosa is a journalism and international relations graduate. She is currently engaged in research into the ‘radicalisation’ of Muslim communities and its impact on international security.

All comment pieces are the sole view of the author and do not reflect the editorial policy. If you would like to write an opinion piece, please send proposals to [email protected]

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Six men arrested over stolen weapons

Police have arrested six in connection with the theft of weapons and several other items.

The weapons and stolen items were recovered from G. Masodige in Male’ during a special operation, police said.

The Maldives Police Services is continuing to investigate the case.

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Former government printed money, says president

The former government’s economic policies were unsustainable, President Mohamed Nasheed claimed during his weekly radio address, explaining that expansionary budgets combined with a lack of revenue had forced the government to print money and raise inflation.

“While three to four years ago the budget stood around Rf7-8 billion, we suddenly saw an inflated Rf12 billion budget,” he said.

“The idea would have been to finance the budget through inflows from the 60 newly leased islands for resort development. Now we all know the state doesn’t get any revenue from those resorts.”

He unveiled plans to increase the government’s revenue by expanding the country’s tourism industry into the mid-market sector and upgrading the fisheries industry. This included plans to establish the country as a fish exporter, he said.

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