The new British High Commissioner to the Maldives, John Rankin, has presented his credentials to President Mohamed Nasheed.
During the ceremony, Nasheed thanked the High Commissioner for the UK’s assistance in introducing and consolidating democracy in the Maldives, and discussed the political and economic situation in the country.
Nasheed also raised the struggle for democracy in Egypt, and called on Western countries to support rather than fear the forces of democracy in Muslim countries.
Rankin succeeds Dr Peter Hayes at the UK’s High Commission in Colombo. He has served as Deputy Head of Mission at the British Embassy in Dublin, working on the Northern Ireland peace process, and was Her Majesty’s Consul General in Boston between 2003 and 2007.
The new Vietnamese Ambassador Nguyen Thanh Tan also presented his credentials to President Nasheed.
The pair discussed the potential to increase cooperation between the Maldives and Vietnam, such as expanding the local aquaculture industry.
Council members officially confirmed to have won seats during the country’s first local council elections held this month will take an oath of office this Saturday (26 February), according to the Home Ministry.
Haveeru reported that city, atoll and island councillors that were not required to take part in a second round of elections would attend swearing-in ceremonies that will begin at 9am on Saturday.
Each of the respective ceremonies will be held locally; with island councillors swearing-in within their constituencies and their atoll counterparts travelling to their respective capital islands to be inaugurated.
According to Haveeru, the Home Ministry has called for members of the public to attend the ceremonies in an attempt to harbour a sense of national spirit about the occasions.
While the majority of councillors selected during the council elections will be taking part on the ceremony, some positions still remain up for grabs after a second round of voting was announced last week in five constituencies.
EC Vice President Ahmed Hassan Fayaz confirmed that a second round of voting would be taking place on 12 March 2011 in Baa atoll Kihaadhoo, Raa atoll Dhuvaafaru, Gaaf Alif atoll Kolamaafushi, Haa Dhaal atoll Kumundhoo, and Meemu atoll Veyvah to reselect a fifth respective council candidate.
The decision was taken due to claims that an equal number of votes for each constituency were received by contestants for the fifth and final seat.
Protests that erupted in the Libyan city of Benghazi have spread to the capital, after a vicious military crackdown that opposition supporters are claiming may have killed up to 200.
Despite the news blackout, yesterday reports of assorted incidents filtered out from the country, often over the phone to news media. Libyans accused their leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi of using mercenaries from Chad to attack protesters, deploy sniper teams firing indiscriminately on protesters, and even of firing an anti-aircraft missile to disperse a crowd. A cleric told the BBC he had seen a tank crush a car containing two passengers, another said African mercenaries has shot and killed a two year-old boy.
Last night Gaddafi’s son Saif Gaddafi appeared on state television and warned that the overthrow of the 42 year regime could lead to civil war. At least one military battalion has sided with the demonstrators following the Benghazi crackdown.
The BBC’s Middle East correspondent Jon Leyne described Saif Gaddafi’s rambling speech as “one of the strangest political speeches I think I’ve ever sat through. He was completely and utterly detached from the reality of what is going on in his country.”
“To put it bluntly, most Libyans will just treat it as gibberish – it was completely meaningless to them. The idea that they’re somehow going to sit down and have a national dialogue with a government that’s brought in foreign mercenaries to shoot at them is laughable.”
A 55 year-old orthodontist at ADK hospital in Male has been handed to police after the discovery that he had fled the US facing charges of child molestation.
According to a 1997 report in the New York Times, Kenneth D’Cunha was accused of fleeing the US to escape charges of involvement in a Manhattan pedophile ring and in particular, the sodomy of three young boys.
“Prosecutors said he was part of a ring of men who gave teen-age boys drugs and cash in exchange for sex. The ring was broken up in 1986. Five members of the ring were found guilty. Mr D’Cunha was charged but fled the country,” the NYT reported.
He was eventually discovered by chance 11 years later working in New Zealand when he sued an employer for wrongful dismissal, and was extradited to the United States. He appeared in the State Supreme Court of Manhattan and pleaded not guilty, and was eventually released.
ADK Managing Director Ahmed Afal told Haveeru that hospital management had received complaints from staff. The Indian doctor was still in his probationary period and had been cleared by the Maldives Medical Council, Afal said.
Maldivian police said the dentist was being investigated.
The Elections Commission has suspended public funding of six political parties it claims are inactive.
The parties were the Islamic Democratic Party (IDP), the Maldives National Congress (MNC), the Social Liberal Party (SLP), the Maldivian Social Democratic Party (MSDP), the People’s Party (PP), and the Labour Party.
Haveeru reported Deputy Elections Commissioner Ahmed Fayaz Hassan as saying that payments would only be resumed on a court order, or if parties could prove they were politically active.
The budget allocates Rf 13.65 million (US$1.1 million) for the functioning of political parties. Of that money, reported Haveeru, the ruling Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) received (Rf 3.57 million), opposition Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) Rf 3.15 million, Adhaalath Party Rf 842,441.62, Jumhoree Party Rf 816,538.47, People’s Alliance (PA) Rf 622,691.85, Gaumee Ithihaadh Party (GIP) Rf 643, 471.30, and Dhivehi Qaumee Party (DQP) Rf 618, 279.78.
The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has filed a case against former Managing Director of the State Trading Organisation (STO), Mohamed Hussein Manik, alleging corruption in a US$1.3 million deal with Yacht Tours Maldives (YTM).
Haveeru reported the commission as stating it had filed the case with the Prosecutor General as the money may have been used to purchase shares of Emerald Resort Private Limited to buy Olhuveli Resort.
Manik is currently the CEO of the Pension Administration Office, and was previously Maldives Ambassador to the US.
Yacht Tours is owned by Abdulla Jabir, a former DRP member who joined the MDP following the Presidential election.
Last year the Maldives Tourism Development Corporation paid US$3.8 million to Yacht Tours after a long-running legal dispute over Herathera Island Resort.
MTDC claimed that YTM had been running Herathera Island Resort without paying rent and took the company to court. In May 2009 the court ordered YTM to pay US$8 million in outstanding rent to MTDC, however YTM successfully claimed that MTDC had failed to fulfil a contractual obligation to build a channel between Herethere Resort and Hulhudhoo, an adjoining inhabited island.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has praised developments in the reporting of child abuse cases in the Maldives, but is concerned at the challenges posed to “overwhelmed” social services.
Mohamed Naeem, a UNICEF Child Protection Officer based in the Maldives, told Minivan News that although he believed developments in the area of child protection were proving “quite promising”, greater collaboration with members of the public, NGOs and government authorities remained key challenges ahead.
The claims were made as a number of stakeholders from across the Maldivian child protection system met at Bandos Island Resort and Spa last week to try and outline a programme on how to best cooperate on improving the welfare of children in the country, particularly in far flung island communities.
In a speech delivered at the Conference on Child Protection, Ron Pouwels, UNICEF Regional Advisor for Child Protection told the audience assembled at Bandos that outlining a strategy against violence towards children on a national level represented important societal developments.
“Across countries, many challenges remain and violence against children is still often accepted as a lawful practice in the education system, as a form of sentencing by judicial bodies and as a disciplinary measure in care institutions,” he said. “The gap between law and practice also remains wide and challenging. Protective legislation needs to be enforced, permeate the work of institutions and shape the training and ethical standards of professionals.”
Figures taken from an unpublished UNICEF report conducted back in 2008 to study violence against Maldivian children reported that abuse of minors was found to exist across wide sections of Maldives society, both at home and in school – as well as the wider community.
The report claimed that eight percent of student respondents had apparently been hit by a teacher, children with disabilities were found to come under higher risk of receiving physical punishment and girls faced a high risk of being sexually abused, particularly in the capital of Male’.
The findings also reported that eleven percent of boys in the study and 20 percent of girls were believed to have been sexually abused at least once in their life.
Looking ahead
Mohamed Naeem said at present there were no comparative figures on how the child abuse situation had changed in the country since 2008, though he believed there had been improvements in the reporting and monitoring of child abuse in its different forms at the very least.
“Cases of reporting child abuse is up immensely, however this has brought additional challenges that need to be faced,” he said. “With a growing number of cases being reported, social services are being overwhelmed and need to be strengthened.”
Naeem said that a key consideration in bolstering the country’s child protection would be in the provision of more support from local communities and government agencies to social services.
The UNICEF Child Protection Officer claimed that existing initiatives such as Child Protection Committees made up of public citizens who liaised with social services from islands where they did not have a presence were strong examples of the type of collaboration the organization hoped to see.
Naeem claimed that the Child Protection Committees model could be adopted by NGOs and government agencies to maintain a nationwide network focusing on child protection – an area UNICEF has said it will be actively supporting.
In light of this month’s local council elections, Naeem added that decentralised councils and governance were a further positive opportunity to install monitoring and protection systems to benefit young people.
“There are a lot of challenges that would remain in terms of getting such systems up and goin,g” he said. “However, the situation in terms of preventing child abuse is quite different since 2001, I think it’s quite promising.”
Beyond general optimism in terms of developments in national child protection, Naeem said that another key challenge remained for UNICEF and authorities in trying to identify children who were seen as being most vulnerable to possible abuse in society.
The Child Protection Officer claimed that although actions plan were being drawn up, difficulties remained in pinpointing vulnerable groups.
“This could involve cases where children are away from their families for education reasons, have disabilities, or come from single parent families or environments of drug abuse,” he said.
The Conference on Child Protection was held as UNICEF and its partners announced the allocation of US$1.72 million to promote children’s rights in the Maldives as part of a country-wide programme outlining development between 2011 and 2015.
In a statement, UNICEF said that activities identified in the 2011 plan include improving the legislative framework for child rights, strengthening the evidence base for policy planning, and improve capacity of government to deliver improved quality health care and water and sanitation services.
Support will also be provided to ensure enhanced national capacity to deliver inclusive and child friendly education, and to scale up services to protect the most vulnerable children and women from violence. UNICEF will also partner with civil society organizations and the media to enhance their capacity for active monitoring and reporting on children’s issues.
Former State Minister for Islamic Affairs Sheikh Mohamed Shaheem Ali Saeed has written an article calling for studies in comparative religion to be included in courses at the Islamic Faculty of the recently inaugrated National University.
The national university “should be a place that conducts research on issues that the Maldives faces today, especially issues related to human rights, comparative religion, terrorism and the rights of women,” Shaheem wrote in an article (Dhivehi) on the Adhaalath Party’s official website.
Shaheem first floated the idea in April 2010, emphasising that the subject should not be taught at a secondary level “because [students’] minds are not [yet] prepared to deal with these philosophies.”
However at a university level, “it is very important to research and understand other religions,” said Shaheem. “You will not become an infidel for learning about other religions.”
”At Medina’s University Faculty of Shariah they teach comparative religion as well as at the International Islamic University in Malaysia,” he said. ”Terrorism is a rising issue today, and it is very important to know the difference between terrorism and jihad, and the obligations and reasons for jihad.”
He also said that it was the former government that paved way for the Maldives College of Higher Education to progress to a University.
The National University of the Maldives was inaugurated on February 15 by President Mohamed Nasheed, who appointed former Education Minster Dr Mustafa Luthfy as the university’s first chancellor and presented him with the institution’s seal.
The last time to the topic of comparative religion was raised in the Maldives, Adhaalath Party President Sheikh Hussein Rasheed told Minivan News the party would not support the prospect until an understanding of the basic principles of Islam were strengthened. will not support the study of comparative religion in the Maldives until understanding of the basic principles are strengthened.
While he did not disagree with it in principle, Rasheed said that before introducing comparative religion the government should teach Islam in more advanced manner.
President of Jamiyyathul Salaf Sheikh Abdullah Bin Mohamed Ibrahim said in April that people should understand Islam comprehensively before comparative religion was introduced.
Sheikh Abdulla said there were some necessary subjects of Islam many people in the Maldives did not yet understand or were not being taught.
”Only a few people understand the ‘Tafsir’ [exegesis] of Quran,” he said, adding that ”knowledge of other religions is already taught in verses of Quran and Hadith.”
Supreme Court rulings were far superior under “supposedly uneducated judges” during the interim period compared to those delivered by the current bench, some members of the JSC have said.
JSC members MP Afraasheem Ali, High Court Chief Judge Abdul Ghanee Mohamed, Judge Abdullah Didi and Lawyer Ahmed Rasheed also agree that arbitrary powers of the Supreme Court have increased while the standards of its rulings have fallen since the interim period ended.
The JSC members’ scandalous criticism of the country’s highest court comes at a time when it is facing legal action in the Supreme Court over its handling of recent appointments to the High Court.
The remarks were made at a secret meeting on February 6 to discuss who should represent JSC at the Supreme Court, and came to light after an audio recording of the meeting was leaked to the public via YouTube by a source calling itself ‘dhikileaks‘.
Discussing recent Supreme Court rulings during the lead up to the local council elections, Rasheed, who represents the law community at the JSC, said some of the actions would not have been possible “even under the Blue Constitution” of the “former President”.
“Not even then was such a thing [as the Supreme Court ruling on Addu City] possible,” Justice Ghanee is heard saying to general laughter among the men.
MP Afraasheem, agreeing with Justice Ghanee, is heard responding that, “One very prominent judge has told me that things have reached an embarrassing state.”
“The court’s jurisdiction has changed now with the Justice Act”, Rasheed says. MP Afraasheem agrees, “They are stronger… it is always the voice of the Supreme Court now, isn’t it?”
“When these five judges get together, anything goes,” Rasheed is heard replying. MP Afraasheem is heard pointing out that two dissenting opinions were expressed in the particular Supreme Court ruling they were discussing.
“Yes, but this type of powers…” Justice Ghanee is heard saying. The decision, he adds, was made by “consensus of the majority.” Something, he further adds, “Cannot even be seen in Arabic, an Arab nation”.
Laughing, MP Afraasheem is heard responding, “If it’s a majority decision it means there was no consensus… majority is always unanimous… things that are said!”
“That is just to make things as confusing as possible”, Rasheed adds to Abdullah Didi’s agreement.
He also says that, “during the transition period, when it was being said that judges on the bench did not have an education –the rulings they made were far superior.”
“Mujey [Interim Supreme Court Justice and former JSC Chair Mujthaz Fahmy] and them, their rulings were far superior,” Rasheed continues. MP Afraasheem Ali is heard agreeing with him, laughing, and adding that “Yes, things are far more odd now.”
Colluding to commit perjury
Throughout the conversation, the men – with the help of Acting Secretary General Abdul Faththah Abdul Ghafoor – are heard making phone calls to certain members of the JSC to solicit their approval for appointing MP Afraasheem as the JSC’s official representative at the Supreme Court.
MP Afraasheem, who is the Deputy Chair of the JSC, is successful in ringing JSC Public Member Shu’aib Abdul Rahman and Mohamed Fahmy Hassan and getting their approval to appoint him as JSC’s representative to the Supreme Court.
“The Commission majority is not present here … see the way we arrange things on the phone when that happens?” MP Afraasheem is heard saying on the phone to Shu’aib. Shu’aib confirms that he knows of this procedure, and consents to give his approval.
MP Afraasheem expresses his gratitude, and tells Shu’aib the Commission will send a written copy of the decision for him to sign.
“You don’t have a problem with that, Usthaz Shu’aib. That’s okay?” Afraasheem asks. “Yes, yes, yes”, Shu’aib is heard replying.
Once the phone call to Shu’aib is over, Afraasheem, Ghanee and Rasheed are heard discussing whom they should phone next. Ghanee is heard rejecting a suggestion by one of the men to phone Attorney General Sawad, “That will not be so good.”
The careful selection of which JSC members to phone suggests the calls were being made only to those perceived as likely to approve Afraasheem’s appointment; and to those who were unlikely to object to granting their approval on the phone – an act that directly contravenes the Constitution and JSC regulations.
Article 163 of the Constitution states that any meeting of the JSC should be attended by a majority of its 10 members, and that any decision taken by JSC should be by a majority vote cast by members present.
JSC interim Secretary General Abdul Faththah has told Minivan News that while there “should be quorum”, in time-sensitive matters such as court summons members sometimes had to make decisions outside formal meetings, with the approval of other members.
“This is not a matter so important to take a decision with the discussion of the members,” he said.
Forging documents for the Supreme Court
The JSC sent a letter to the Supreme Court, with the same date, saying that “a majority decision had been taken by members who participated in the meeting on February 6” to appoint MP Afraasheem as JSC’s representative to the higher courts.
There are six signatures on the document – that of the four men supposedly present at the meeting, and the two men – Shua’ib and Fahmy – who were absent at the meeting, but had agreed on the phone to Afraasheem’s proposal.
The document is misleading, and represents the decision as having been made by six members who were present at the meeting.
Minivan News can also confirm that the four members present at the meeting had engineered it in such a way that one of its members, Aishath Velezinee, was deliberately excluded from the meeting despite having presented herself at the scheduled time.
Velezinee, who has been the most outspoken and vocal critic of what she has called “machinations of deliberate deceit” at the JSC, had arrived for the meeting as scheduled at 7:30p.m.
After 15 minutes, when the required six members failed to attend, the meeting was cancelled as is required by JSC regulations and Constitutional stipulations. Velezinee left the meeting room, the three men and Acting Secretary General – JSC’s third appointment to the post in five months – remained behind.
Suspecting “something was amiss”, Velezinee stayed within JSC premises after the meeting was called off. The four men were still in the meeting room when she returned to check a quarter of an hour later.
She asked them what they were up to, and was told they were just wrapping things up before leaving. She left. It was after her departure that the three men began making the phone calls. The fourth, Judge Abdulla Didi, had joined some time after she left around 8.00pm, says Velezinee.
The contents of the leaked audiotape supports Velezinee’s version of events as Judge Abdulla Didi is heard saying that the meeting “was cancelled” and “we can’t order for a cancelled meeting”, when MP Afraasheem Ali asks if anyone wants refreshments.
Premeditated plan of deception
In the audio recording of the meeting the four men are also heard discussing not just which members to phone but also what should be said in order to attain the approval they were seeking.
MP Afraasheem, for instance, discusses his phone call with Shu’aib asking if had “said the right things”. Abdul Ghanee replies that it was “perfect”, and disagrees with MP Afraasheem that perhaps he should have “made things a bit shorter”.
Laughing, Ghanee says, “No, no, that is just about right.” The men also discuss whether they should first send text messages to their targeted members, and whether it is best to ring them on the Secretariat mobile phones first as they would be more likely to pick up then.
After Shu’aib, Afraasheem’s next call is to Mohamed Fahmy Hassan whom he tells he is “calling from that big phone” at the JSC.
Inquiring after how things went “during the campaign”, he laughingly tells Fahmy that “Usthaz Ghanee, Usthaz Ahmed Rasheed and Usthaz Didi” were all listening.
Afraasheem is heard requesting Fahmy’s approval to appoint him as JSC’s legal representative to the Supreme Court, and also informs him that Shu’aib had already said yes.
“If you want, Afraasheem…”, Fahmy is heard saying.
“What you are saying is that if I have no objections to the appointment, you have none. Is that so?” Afraasheem says. “Yes, yes”, Fahmy says. Afraasheem also tells Fahmy that Ghanee had suggested appointing Fahmy himself as the representative.
“No, no. Keep me at a bit of a distance”, Fahmy demurs. “In that case”, replies Afraasheem, “I will send you the decision for you to sign.” Fahmy agrees.
Fahmy has previously told Minivan News he had no comment on matters relating to the JSC.
The men also appear to be aware of the underhanded nature of their actions, saying such tactics would have been harder had the JSC Chair Adam Mohamed been present.
“It would not have been this easy to do this if Adam was here”, Justice Ghanee is heard saying referring to Adam Mohamed’s lengthy pronunciations. Abdulla Didi agrees, “Yes, that’s the problem with Adam, isn’t it?”
Adam was abroad at the time of the meeting.
Once Fahmy gave his approval, Afraasheem hangs up the phone, and is heard declaring, “This is fun!”
He continues, “Tension. Able to get rid of the tension! We have six now, don’t we?” he says, referring to the six signatures that are needed for a JSC decision to be valid and binding.
“Six,” Rasheed is heard confirming.
“We have six”, Faththah says. The audio recording ends with some muffled voices in which one of the voices, which cannot be identified, says, “So lets get this signed and done with.”
JSC’s efforts to resist judiciary reform
JSC’s criticism of the Supreme Court bench, and the broad agreement among the men that the Court functioned better during the interim period reflects a general attitude observed among some JSC members to resist bringing the judiciary in line with the 2008 Constitution.
MP Afraasheem has been at the forefront of the resistance. He has, for example, dismissed as “symbolic” Article 285 of the Constitution, which demands that all judges who do not meet its newly stipulated qualifications be dismissed after two years of it coming into force.
The two years were up in August 2010, and the JSC has failed to take the required steps to remove or replace unqualified judges, instead deciding to re-appoint the whole bench having declared it “a violation of their human rights” to remove them under a retrospective law – meaning the new Constitution.
Moreover, in December of last year, MP Afraasheem successfully sought Majlis approval for legislation that granted a lifetime pension of Rf 600,000 (US$46,700) a year to former Interim Supreme Court Justice Mujthaz Fahmy.
Fahmy was on the bench of the Interim Supreme Court, which was dissolved on 10 August, 2010. When the new Supreme Court proper was established he was not re-appointed to the bench.
Records seen by Minivan News show that Fahmy is nowhere near meeting the educational qualifications required of a judge in any court, let alone the Supreme Court, and had also been found guilty of embezzling State funds.
Fahmy lacks a basic law degree, trained a total of 217 days in the 29 years he spent in the judiciary, and possesses a ‘sentencing certificate’ obtained as his only claim to an education in law.
Some of the 217 days Fahmy spent in ‘professional training’ included time spent acquiring the skills to use a computer.
MP Afraasheem told an approving Majlis that awarding the extraordinarily generous pension to Fahmy would strengthen the country’s judiciary and ensure its honesty and integrity.
JSC and a legal black hole
Alleged irregularities in its recent High Court appointments are not the only reasons for which the JSC has been recently summoned to the courts. In January this year, Civil Court Judge Mariyam Nihayath threw out a professional negligence case against the JSC.
Treasure Island Limited had brought the civil suit against the JSC alleging that it had failed to carry out its constitutional duties by arbitrarily dismissing its complaints of misconduct against two judges in a case involving millions of US Dollars and prominent members of the tourism industry.
Although the JSC failed to satisfy Judge Nihayath that it did have a proper procedure for dealing with complaints against the judiciary, she threw out the case against it when Treasure Island was late for the court on what was to be the penultimate hearing of the case.
Shortly after, the JSC launched its process for the High Court appointments. Judge Nihayath was one of the unsuccessful candidates, and is also among three candidates who have written to the JSC requesting further details on the selection criteria.
Although Nihayath and two other judges have written to the JSC seeking clarification of the procedures for making High Court appointments, and despite the fact that the High Court is virtually suspended while the case remains pending at the Supreme Court, the JSC does not appear to be treating the matter with any real importance or urgency.
It tabled the three judges’ requests for discussion on 16 February. It was the second last matter to be discussed – before the matter of the retirement procedure for judges who are over 70 years of age, and after four other items including the matter of what legal action to take against Velezinee.
Velezinee’s alleged removal of JSC’s official documents from its premises appears to be the matter to which the JSC is according most importance, ahead of a properly functioning judicial system.
The contents of the dhikileaks audio tape has been available to the public, and broadcast in the national media, from last week onwards. The JSC is yet to pay any attention to it, despite the evidence it provides of members colluding to submit a forged document to the Supreme Court, committing perjury.
The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) conducted a fact-finding mission in September of last year, and is due to publish its findings tomorrow.
(0)Dislikes
(0)