Day: March 14, 2010

Murder of newborn baby sends mother and daughter to life in prison

The Criminal Court has sentenced a woman and her mother to life in prison for killing an illegitimate new born baby.

Aminath Hussain, 31, and her 64 year old mother Sakeena Ali, both of Omadhu, Thaa Atoll confessed to the crime in court.

According to the court, the baby was delivered in a toilet, after which the grandmother submerged the baby in a pool of water.

They then put the baby into a polythene bag and buried it near the beach.

The Criminal Court has acquitted the 21 year old father of the crime.

Omadhu Case

Police Sub Inspector Ahmed Shiyam said there were “some clues that [the father] had some involvement,” but added that the court had made its decision and the police respected it.

Shiyam said although these types of cases are “not [reported on] a lot” there is another similar case currently being processed where a new born baby was “thrown into the sea” in Laamu Atoll.

Island Councillor for Omadhu Ahmed Abdulla said the incident occurred last year.

He said an islander knocked on his door early one morning when he was preparing to attend the first school assembly of the year.

“He knocked and told me to come out quick,” Abdulla said, “and when I came out, he told me that a baby had been killed on the beach.”

Abdulla said he immediately went to the beach and saw the baby’s legs protruding from the polythene bag.

He said there was blood around the baby’s neck, which appeared to be broken.

Abdulla then informed the police, who told him to monitor the crime scene until they arrived.

Shiyam confirmed the police had received a call from the island office reporting the crime.

Illegitimate children under Sharia law

Because abortion is illegal in the Maldives (the exception being if an unborn child is diagnosed with Thalassaemia), some women travel overseas to perform the operation..

But many cannot afford to so.

Deputy Minister of Health and Family Mariya Ali said “we don’t know a lot about it but there have been other [similar] cases.”

“It’s something that should be considered under child mortality,” she said, adding that there had been no comprehensive studies on the subject.

“We don’t hear about it a lot,” Ali said, “and we don’t know the exact prevalence of these cases.”

She added that many cases are probably not reported.

Mariya said there could be many reasons behind a family choosing to kill a baby, the main reason probably being that “children born out of wedlock still face discrimination” in society.

She noted that other factors, like the mother’s mental state, should be considered when looking at the reasons why people resort to these crimes.

Because under Sharia law premarital sex is forbidden, young couples can find themselves looking for a solution to get rid of an unwanted, and illegitimate, child.

Mariya said the Ministry of Health and Family would “talk to the Islamic Ministry and see how we can deal with these issues and reduce the number of cases.”

She added that “under Maldivian law, this is considered murder.”

Mohamed Shihaab of Child Abuse Watch Maldives did not hesitate in saying a crime such as this one “is not child abuse, it is murder.”

He said “some people think children born out of wedlock do not have a right to life,” adding that it was a major concern for the country.

“We need to look at how justice is served,” Shihaab said. “In how many cases has it not been served?”

“People need to accept we live in a more complex society. The police, the Prosecutor General and the judiciary also need to be more advanced.”

Sheikh Abdulla Jameel said people were not afraid of committing these kind of crimes because the courts did not punish according to Sharia law.

He explained that the Qur’an says a person must be killed if the court finds them guilty of a murder.

“The judge decides how [the person] will be killed,” explained Sheikh Abdulla, adding that “people would be afraid to commit such crimes if the courts start punishing according to Islamic Sharia.”

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Haama editor fined Rf5000 for defaming Yameen

Editor of Haama News Saif Azhar was fined by civil court last Thursday for defaming the character of People’s Alliance (PA) leader Abdulla Yameen.

Civil Court Judge Maryam Nihayath ruled that an article published in June last year claiming that Yameen had US$32 million in his HSBC bank account was defamatory.

Saif was fined Rf5000 (US$385), currently the maximum penalty for defamation in the Maldives. Yameen also has lawsuits pending against Ibrahim Waheed, the journalist who wrote the article, the editor of Jazeera Daily Fayyaz Faisal, the owner of Haama Daily (Axis Maldives) and Ahmed Muhsin, the assistant editor of TVM.

Yameen had sought Rf2,570,000 million (US$192,000) for psychological damages and Rf21,775,305 (US$1.67 million) for material damages, claims which were dismissed by the judge.

Azhar said he was not in town when the article was published and had no knowledge of it, claiming that his journalist Ibrahim Waheed had written the piece.

”In the article we mentioned that the source [of the information] was online news website Manadhoolive,” he said, ”but the judge decided that we had not referred to any source.”

He said the same article published in Haama News was also published in the newspaper Haveeru.

President of the Maldives Journalism Association (MJA) Ahmed ‘Hiriga’ Zahir said the association did not support journalists defaming people’s character.

”We do not support journalists writing stories without any evidence or proof,” he said. ”It’s a practice everywhere to fine journalists.”

Secretary General of the PA Ahmed Shareef said the outcome of the case showed that the country was strengthening its judicial service.

”Journalists have to be more responsible and careful when publishing articles,” he said.

Yameen failed to response Minivan News at time of press.

The former editor of weekly magazine Sandhaanu was also recently ordered to pay Rf5000 (US$389) for defaming Mohamed Ghassan Maumoon, the former president’s son.

Ghassan took Abdulla ‘Fahala’ Saeed to the civil court seeking Rf3.375 million (US$262,600) over an article Fahala had written in the 118th edition of Sandhaanu magazine.

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US State Department critical of women’s rights in the Maldives

Human rights in the Maldives have “continued to improve from the previous year, although some issues remain” according to the 2009 Country Report on Human Rights Practices published by the United States’ Department of State.

The report, published on 11 March, describes a case reported last September by detainees at Maafushi jail to the Human Rights Commission Maldives (HRCM) where “members of the Emergency Support Group (ESG)… indiscriminately attacked detainees.”

President of HRCM Ahmed Saleem said they have “received less complaints than in the past” regarding abuse of detainees.

Under the heading of “Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment” the report reads “the law prohibits such practices, although there were reports of mistreatment of persons by security forces.”

Saleem said the Maldives had endured “a culture of torture” for many years, “but things have changed and are still changing.”

On the unequal treatment of women, the report cites that “In 2008 the Ministry of Gender and Family released data showing an increase in the reported cases of violence against women, although NGOs believed that most cases remained unreported.”

Saleem said “in this country women enjoy more rights than in other countries,” noting that “women have been voting here for as long as I can remember.”

Saleem added that the United States still hasn’t ratified the international Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).

“Ninety-nine countries have signed it,” Saleem said, “but not the United States.”

The report also states that “Under [Maldivian] law, spousal rape is not a crime” and “There are no laws in force regarding domestic violence against women or workplace harassment, nor were there firm data on the extent of violence against women.”

Saleem responded to this by saying that “domestic violence is a crime anywhere” and reiterated that the “population of Maldives is unique” and women enjoy many rights that women in other countries do not have.

Another point of concern shown in the report was that of the judicial system releasing known pedophiles back into the communities of their victims.

The report reads “The [Judicial Service Commission] JSC did not publicise deliberations or make recommendations on the hiring, dismissal, or discipline of judges during the year.”

The report says that according to the Maldives Police Service (MPS) “from January to March, 34 cases of child sexual abuse were reported, and 23 pedophiles were arrested.”

It also stated that there was an increase in the reporting of child abuse cases, which the MPS attributed to growing public awareness.

Saleem said the HRCM “is not in favour of the government releasing any criminal unless they are fit to live in society” and have been through a rehabilitation programme.

He added that the HRCM is “sending reports” to change these practices and “things are happening. But it’s not as quick as we want it to be.”

The Department of State’s report further reads “The law does not provide for freedom of religion and significantly restricts it” but only cited one case suggesting that a lack of freedom of religion could be seen as a human rights issue in the Maldives.

The report said that as the Ministry of Islamic Affairs has sole authority to grant preaching licenses, they requested the police investigate an independent prayer group led by unlicensed preachers. This could be seen as an infringement on the group’s rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association (section 2b of the report).

The Ministry of Islamic Affairs said the reason for the investigation was the threat of religious extremism.

The last major concern in the report was the rights of workers, mainly foreign labour workers.

According to the report, the HRCM had reported “some domestic workers, especially migrant female domestic workers, were in some cases trapped in circumstances bordering on forced labor in which employers used threats and intimidation to prevent them from leaving.”

The report adds that “In December 2008 the government established a Labour Relations Authority and a Labour Tribunal to implement the new Employment Law.”

The Tribunal did not begin functioning until April 2009 due to budgetary constraints and lack of office space.

When asked what he thought of the changes in human rights practices in the country, Saleem said “as far as civil rights go, we are a changed country.”

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Climate skepticism a “diabolical conspiracy” says Nasheed

President Mohamed Nasheed launched a vigorous assault on the current wave of climate change skepticism during his address at the Freie Universität in Berlin.

“In my mind there is a diabolical conspiracy to cloud the scientific evidence behind climate change,” he said. “The science is very clear and sorted, but there are vested interests trying to cloud the issue.”

The president was particularly critical of the hacked emails from the Climate Change Unit at the University of East Anglia, which he argued “make no material difference to the fact climate change is happening.”

“It is now so necessary to find out who distributed the emails, who hacked it, where they are placed, how the emails made the rounds, and how they became newspaper headlines. Where is the investigative journalism on the criminal element of it all?” he asked.

“And why are the emails such a big issue when there is no substance in them? I’ve read them all and they don’t add up. I believe there is a conspiracy, and I believe responsible journalists should think about who is behind this, who is this devil?”

Nasheed was also critical of the coverage surrounding inaccuracies in reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which consolidates much of the accepted climate change science.

“Any report can have factual errors but that does not make any substantial difference to the facts,” he said. “Even if one page of a 1000 page report [is problematic], you cannot then deny the other 999 pages.”

He accused the media of being complicit in the loss of momentum around climate change following the lacklustre Copenhagen Accord, claiming that continual reference to the email scandal and mistakes in the IPCC report in articles on climate change was “clouding the issue and creating doubt in the general public.”

“We have to get rid of the perception that there something wrong with the science, and we need to pick up the momentum we had at Copenhagen,” Nasheed urged.

“Icecaps are melting, sea levels are rising, the weather is unpredictable, and rain and fish do not appearing at the same time they used to. European friends tell me they have experienced the coldest winter in the last 20-25 years, and by summer I predict they will be saying they’ve had the hottest summer in the last 30 years. We should not doubt the science in front of us – please visit the Maldives and have a look what happening to our beaches, our coral reefs and our oceans. There is no doubt.”

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Counterfeit dollars circulating in the country: MMA

The Maldives Monetary Authority (MMA) has warned there are counterfeit US dollars circulating in the country, reports Miadhu.

The MMA said Police had recently discovered counterfeit 100 dollar notes printed on good quality paper. There are also lower quality fake prints of 20 and 50 dollar notes, according to MMA.

Police said the counterfeit notes are worth around US$400,000 and are printed under eleven serial numbers, making it difficult to determine their authenticity.

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MJA criticises MDP for not allowing pluralism in the media

The Maldives Journalists Association (MJA) has criticised the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) after opposition-leaning DhiTV cameras were not allowed to cover an MDP general meeting, reports Miadhu.

The MDP meeting was being held at Lale International School in Hulhumalé, where DhiTV journalists were forced to leave the meeting.

“It is worrying that ruling party members do not understand that pluralism is the essence of democracy,” said the MJA, adding that “such threats against the independence and diversity of the media only serve to blatantly expose the lack of democratic credentials in senior ruling party members.”

The MJA also expressed concern over the intimidation of private media by MDP senior officials.

The MJA condemed “all such acts by ruling party officials and members against democracy and press freedom in Maldives.”

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Police seek cooperation to stop gang violence

Police are launching a major operation to minimise gang violence, reports Miadhu.

Police have communicated with the courts, the Prosecutor General’s office, People’s Majlis and the media.

Police said gang violence is rising, and a gang-related case is reported to the Police every 27 minutes. There have been thirteen deaths and many injuries in the last three years relating to these cases.

Police said the main reasons behind gang violence were lack of education, unemployment and drugs. Police said most gang members were aged between 15 and 21.

Police Commissioner Faseeh asked the media for their full cooperation. He said full cooperation from all concerned members was essential in abating crime.

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President Nasheed meets with President and PM of Iceland

President Mohamed Nasheed arrived in Iceland on Friday morning as part of his European tour, meeting the country’s President Ólafur Grímsson.

The presidents discussed issues of mutual concern like climate change, which President Nasheed said was a very real threat to the world and was an issue to be tackled urgently.

President Nasheed commended Iceland’s policy to make renewable energy their main source of energy. He said both developed and developing countries could learn from Iceland in this respect.

President Nasheed said cooperation between both countries could be strengthened in both the fisheries industry and in renewable energy. He sought Iceland’s assistance in these areas.

President Ólafur Grímsson expressed his wish to strengthen relations with the Maldives, and assured President Nasheed of his country’s support and assistance.

President Nasheed later met with Prime Minister Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir and discussed ways of strengthening bilateral relations between the two countries.

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President attends ‘Maldivian Night’ tourism event in Berlin

As part of his on-going European tour, President Mohamed Nasheed participated in Maldivian Night, a tourism event organised by the Maldives Tourism Promotion Board (MTPB) on Wednesday in Berlin.

The function was attended by major tour operators and the media. President Nasheed discussed the Maldivian tourism industry, saying that after a downturn in previous months, tourist arrivals were now picking up.

He said the private sector had done a lot of hard work to make the industry strong and resilient. He added that government wants to stay out of the tourism business and act as a regulator to facilitate its growth.

The president also launched a new tourism advertisement, made in association with the National Geographic Channel, which focuses on environmental preservation.

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