A house named ‘Fair’ in Maafannu ward has been severely damaged in a fire, report police.
Police reported that households and valuables were damaged in the incident.
According to police nobody was injured in the incident.
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(0)(0)Dislikes(0)A senior civil servant working at Male’ Municipality has been suspended by the Civil Service Commission (CSC), reportedly in connection with one of the explicit videos obtained by police from a Facebook blackmail ring.
CSC Commissioner Fahmy Hassan confirmed to Minivan News that the civil servant had been suspended pending an investigation into the offending video, which had been leaked to the internet and reported to the CSC.
“We do not have knowledge of how the video was released, or whether he was being blackmailed,” Fahmy said.
Fahmy noted that there had been previous such incidences that prompted investigations, and these were occasionally unproven.
Police arrested 14 people involved in the alleged Facebook blackmail ring last month, in which profiles featuring an attractive blonde woman in sunglasses were reportedly used to extract explicit photos and videos from those who befriended her. Almost 3000 people – mostly Maldivian – befriended the various fraudulent profiles, with names like “Angelic Sharrown” and “Lyshiaa Limanom”.
”While some of the pictures were taken of people while drunk, other pictures were taken without the consent of the persons,” police said, when the arrests were announced.
Some of the people in the videos appeared to be performing explicit acts in the presence of minors, police said, adding that this could lead to further investigations of those pictured.
”The case relates to the rights of many citizens and affects the social policy of the Maldives, and may also affect the safety of the society,” said police at the time.
Information gathered so far had revealed that people from all levels of Maldivian society were affected, “including underage females juveniles, young women, professional and semi-professional persons, and people of both genders working all across the country.”
(0)Dislikes(0)Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) MP Ahmed Rasheed has presented an amendment to the Clemency Act during yesterday’s parliament session, requiring the death penalty to be administered where the sentence was upheld by the Supreme Court.
While the Maldives theoretically has a death penalty under Islamic Shariah, in practice this has been implemented as a 25 year prison sentence.
In November 2010, the Criminal Court of the Maldives issued a death sentence to a person found guilty of murder. However the last person to actually be judicially executed was Hakim Didi in 1953, who was executed by firing squad after being found guilty of consipiracy to murder using black magic.
In last year’s death penalty verdict, the judge referred to article 88[d] of the Constitution, which stated that cases of murder should be dealt accordingly to Islamic Shariah, and that persons found guilty of murder ”shall be executed” if no inheritor of the victim denies the murderer to be executed, as according to Islamic Shariah.
According to MP Rasheed’s proposed amendment, if the Supreme Court upholds a death penalty ruled by a lower court, or if the Supreme Court itself serves death penalty to a person, the death penalty shall be executed.
Rasheed said he felt he had to present the amendment because of the increase in assaults and murder cases, which had “forced the living to live amid fear and threats.”
He noted that police were sending these cases to court after “thoroughly investigating and researching” them, but the reason the criminals were escaping was because the Prosecutor General was sending “young, untrained lawyers” to the courts. In many cases, he alleged, the PG’s office was not giving its lawyers the police investigation report.
In 2008 Rasheed said 104 cases of assault were sent to Prosecutor General, increasing to 454 in 2009 and 423 cases in 2010.
”I beg this esteemed Majlis to try and make the Prosecutor General accountable,” he said, adding that if his amendment was passed, “violence in this country will be eliminated.”
”In Quran, Sural Al Baqarah verse 178, God says: ‘O ye who believe! the law of equality is prescribed to you in cases of murder: the free for the free, the slave for the slave, the woman for the woman. But if any remission is made by the brother of the slain, then grant any reasonable demand, and compensate him with handsome gratitude, this is a concession and a Mercy from your Lord. After this whoever exceeds the limits shall be in grave penalty’,” he said. ”During broad day light in this very city of Male’ people have been chopped, sliced and crushed using axes, machetes – just like fish are chopped.”
”I am saying brains have leaked out, after being constantly hit by shovels until their skulls are crushed,” he said.
DRP MP Ali Waheed said that he supported “killing those who kill.”
Waheed claimed that “more than 600 youths have been charged in murder cases.”
However, he said, ”slaughtering those who murder is not the solution. We should first try an adequate measurement for this [penalty] instead of implementing death penalties.”
”The corpse found in Lhaviyani Atoll is being buried today after taking DNA samples. But [police] is not sure whether it is the corpse of the Kendhoo person who fell in to the Kaashidhoo Ocean or the corpse of the person missing from Naifaru,” said Ali Waheed. ”This is the situation today.”
President’s Member on the Judicial Services Commisson (JSC), Aishath Velezinee, who wrote her thesis on Sharia, equality and family law, said the country had to first attend to the issue of trust in the judiciary before discussing the death penalty.
“While Islam provides for the dealth penalty in certain cases where preconditions are met, there must be no doubt as to justice has been delivered. There must be absolute faith in the judicary for the death sentence to be delivered – it cannot be reverted,” she said.
“It is an affront to the constitution we adopted for parliament to be discussing this issue without first addressing the multitude of complaints against the JSC. Parliament has shown absolute disregard for the lack of independence of the judiciary.”
(0)Dislikes(0)Decentralising public health services will promote preventative medicine in the Maldives, President Mohamed Nasheed said today announcing that the health sector would be the first to be decentralised.
”We always hear that this hospital is lacking this machine, or that hospital is lacking doctors, or complaints that islanders cannot access adequate health facilities,” said Nasheed. ”This government’s objective is to prevent people from falling ill, because prevention is better than cure.”
At a press conference today, Nasheed said the government was trying to organise the health sector in a way that newly-elected island councilors could supervise the health sector of each island.
”We want to make sure that all persons that require special assistance are provided with that special assistance,” he said.
Islanders in at least one division have already expressed concern that many of the elected councilors were not capable of handling positions of responsibility.
One islander from the central region of the Maldives recently told Minivan News that on his island, only two of the five elected councilors had finished their GCE O’Levels.
”Because they ran as candidates for the seats under different parties, supporters of those parties have voted for them for the sake of promoting their party,” he said. ”Votes were not made with consideration for how educated the candidate is, or how capable the person, just by what political party he belongs to.”
At this morning’s press conference, Nasheed said that ministers and senior government officials from different areas including the health ministry had begun visiting different islands to conduct workshops and to provide information to the new councilors about their role in decentralising the health sector.
Addressing the concerns of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) regarding the cost of the new layer of government, expressed in a recent notice published at the conclusion of the organisation’s Article IV consultation with the Maldives, Nasheed acknowledged that “the short-term cost [of decentralisation] is likely to be high.”
The salaries alone for the island and atoll councils are expected to cost the Maldivian state an extra Rf173 million (US$13.5 million) a year, on top of the country’s 21-22 percent budget deficit.
“Although the short-term cost is high, it should be obvious to the IMF and other donors that in the long term decentralisation will reduce costs,” Nasheed said.
There was, he said, a public appetite to decentralise, which was “a cornerstone pledge” of most political parties in the country.
“It is very obvious to the government that providing services at a local level is cheaper than centrally-imposed services [with disregard] for local conditions. All over the world decentralisation is expensive to start, but highly cost efficient when it starts running.”
Nasheed also sent his condolences to the mother and family of the child who recently died during labour, forcing doctors to resort to surgery to save the mother’s life.
“We can’t say this is something that should happen, or something that we can say is right,” Nasheed said.
There was bill on medical negligence pending in parliament, he added.
(0)Dislikes(0)A solo exhibition by Mariyam Omar called “Untitled Works” will be held at the National Art Gallery on Thursday March 10, at 8:30pm.
The museum noted that Omar in her exhibition has used a range of mediums, including unconventional materials like coffee to explore the theme of the human figure and expressive gestures of the body.
Formally trained as a graphic designer, Omar has also produced and exhibited her works in Maldives and abroad over the past few years.
(0)Dislikes(0)The Maldives will hold a second round of elections on Saturday in five constituencies where candidates received an equal number of votes, reports Haveeru.
Director General of the Elections Commission Mohamed Tholal told Haveeru that run-off elections would be held at Baa atoll Kihaadhoo council, Raa atoll Dhuvaafaru council, Gaaf Alif atoll Kolamaafushi council, Haa Dhaal atoll Kumundhoo council, and Meemu atoll Veyvah councils.
“We are trying to send the ballots to the islands tomorrow,” Tholal said. “We will set up ballot boxes in the respective islands and Male as not enough people registered during the registration period.”
The High Court meanwhile has 33 cases pending concerning the local council elections, out 42 filed. 18 are complaint cases, and 15 involve criminal investigation, Haveeru reported.
(0)Dislikes(0)The Maldives celebrated the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day yesterday evening at a function jointly organised by the UNFPA and NGO Thirees Nuvaeh.
Speakers included the country’s first female MP and former Health Minister Aneesa Ahmed, serving MP Eva Abdulla, Sheikh Mohamed Qubadh Abubakru and Savithri Goonesekara, Emeritus Professor of Law at the University of Colombo in Sri Lanka.
UNFPA Country Lene Christiansen observed that women in the Maldives carried a lot of responsibility, with the country having of the highest ratios of female-led households in the world at 47 percent. Half of the time this was due to migration of the spouse for work, and in one in six cases, because of the divorce or death of the spouse, she explained.
However female unemployment was three times higher than for men, she noted, and had a mere six percent representation in parliament. In addition, a third of women aged 15-49 had reported suffering physical or sexual violence.
Christiansen also noted the rising practice of home schooling of girls, “which denies them access to the school system including higher level education, and restricts other opportunities in life.”
“The constitution upholds gender equality and non discrimination, but in reality women are disadvantaged and cannot participate in economic and political activities,” she said.
Civil society had a crucial role to play as “a watchdog” for women’s rights, and in ensuring that politicians were held accountable to the female half of their constituencies.
Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) MP Eva Abdulla claimed that the Maldives’ newfound freedom of expression, which many women had fought for, was now being misused “to attack and demean women in the name of religion.”
Instead, Abdulla said, “Islam is the religion that taught us to respect our mothers and our women above all else.”
“We have been reluctant to address this issue head on. Women have been under constant attack for two years and we have not been able to counter it – we simply don’t have confidence [do to so],” she said.
Equality was, she said, about ensuring women had equal access to opportunity – something that had not happened despite the efforts of women to bring about democracy and human rights in the Maldives.
“A lot of women were involved in the last five years of the democratic movement,” Abdulla said, “but [afterwards], men inherited all the jobs.”
In her speech, Goonesekara emphasised that “women in the West had to fight for aspirations for equal life chances and for their rights a century ago. They struggled for the right to vote, to work, and for safe and fair conditions of work and employment.”
The origin of women’s day stemmed from working women, she said, who united after a fire in a US garment factory at the turn of the 20th century that killed 146 women.
“We have to remind ourselves that we are members of the international community,” she said, “and sometimes in our countries our own traditions and governance are seen as something different from those of the international community. But we live in a connected world and are bound by principles of the UN charter on human rights.”
“Equality,” she said, “is a much misunderstood word, but it is precisely about giving women equal life chances and sharing the world with men.”
The event concluded with entertainment including Boduberu/Dhigudhandi by Villigili and Hura Groups, Dhivehi Peoms, Bandhi, Raivaru, and Buzura Dance.
(0)Dislikes(0)The MPs Privileges Bill has been today sent back to committee for review and amendment.
Out of 67 MPs present in the Majlis today, 40 of them voted in favor of sending it to the committee for amendment.
DRP MPs did not vote to send the bill to the committee, according to Haveeru, while there were two MPs who did not vote on the issue. Some DRP members did speak out during the session to call for amendments to the bill.
Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) MP Alhan Fahmy, who previously voted in favour of the bill, said during today’s parliamentary sitting that the privileges for MPs were very clearly stated in article 90 of the Maldives constitution. He called on fellow members to send the bill to committee for amendment.
”In all the other countries, MPs do have some privileges,” said Alhan. ”In Article 127 of the constitution the procedures of how a MP should be arrested on criminal charges is mentioned.”
DRP MP for Naifaru, Ahmed Mohamed also suggested the bill should be sent to a committee for amendment.
”This bill was passed by the vote of MDP MPs, Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) and Independent MPs, now there is no reason that either should criticise the other,” said Mohamed.
Mohamed said he would not approve article 4[c] of the MPs privilege bill, which “states that MPs cannot be arrested while they are on the way to the parliament, inside the parliament or while they are on the way back from the parliament, even if they are charged on a criminal case,” said Mohamed.
”A MP might commit murder while on their way to parliament, but he can’t be arrested.”
PA MP for the Maavashu area, Abdul Azeez Jamal Abubakuru, also suggested that the bill should be sent for a committee for amendment.
”If this bill does not get passed I am fine, and if it gets passed also I am fine,” he said.
On January 17 President vetoed the controversial privileges bill, which would have seen MPs earning salary and benefits on a level with developed countries such as Sweden, as well as excusing them from paying import duties on automobiles and giving them immunity from prosecution.
The President made the decision following legal council from the Attorney General, Dr Ahmed Ali Sawad, as well as consultation with the Human Rights Commission of the Maldives (HRCM).
The bill, which was submitted by Vilufushi MP Riyaz Rasheed, was passed with 44 to 21 in favour, and 10 abstentions, and would have seen MPs earning thousands of dollars more in salary and allowances than MPs in countries such as France, India and Italy.
The matter has triggered lively demonstrations outside parliament since it was first announced, while a group of “concerned citizens” petitioned the President claiming that not only was the salary increase excessive, but that elements within it gave MPs extrajudicial and unconstitutional privileges. The bill was about less about state-building and more about status, the petitioners claimed.
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