Day: May 5, 2011

Foreign Ministry criticises opposition media “manipulation”

The Maldives Foreign Ministry has accused some opposition parties of acting irresponsibly by “misleading” international media over details of protests held this week in Male’, which it alleges have begun to impact interest in the country’s lucrative tourism industry.

Facing members of the local media today, Foreign Minister Ahmed Naseem rejected Minivan News’ use of the term “unrest” to describe demonstrations that have taken place over five nights this week in Male’ concerning the cost of living in the country, claiming that the government was “open to negotiation” on the issue and welcomed alternative political solutions from opposition.

Naseem’s claims were rejected by Ahmed Thasmeen Ali, head of the country’s largest political opposition party, who claimed to have not been consulted by the government on resolving the issues of living costs, as well as adding that it would be difficult to control the output of international news media.

The protesters, who are expected to take part in a sixth consecutive demonstration tonight, have demanded the government lower the cost of living and called on President Mohamed Nasheed to resign, claiming people were increasingly unable to afford basic commodities following the government’s effective devaluation of the rufiya.

Parliamentarians including some members of the Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) and the Zaeem-DRP (Z-DRP), an off-shoot of the main opposition party and its coalition partner the People’s Alliance (PA) party activists have been involved in the protests, yet have insisted that the street portests were instigated as part of a non-partisan “youth movement”.

As the protests have been covered by international news media, leading to concerns about the potential impact on the country’s tourism industry, Naseem said he did not believe terms such as “unrest” were appropriate to describe events he believed had been orchestrated by opposition politicians in the DRP and Z-DRP to offset their own internal struggles.

“With regards to what is happening in Male’ I think these are orchestrated events. I have a strong feeling the DRP is trying to find out who their leader is and that is the reason for the actions seen in Male’. We do these things [appointing leaders] through elections and by-elections. They [the DRP] do it through street walks and demonstrations and whatever else you can call it. You said unrest? I don’t think there is unrest,” he said.

The foreign minister added that he believed that there was a small number of people organising the protests looking to create deep unrest in the country and that they should be held responsible for their actions.

“People who organise such events [the protests] should take full responsibility for the images and disruption and damage to property caused,” he said. “I think everyone whose property has been damaged should file cases against the people who are organising these events.”

Reacting to the comments, DRP leader Ahmed Thasmeen Ali said he was “utterly surprised” that a member of the current government, which has vocally supported freedom of speech and democratic reforms, would find protests “unreasonable” on the basis of protecting tourism.

“We have seen them try to stifle protest through using excessive police force,” he claimed. “We are peaceful protestors and are not impacting tourism in Male’.”

Thasmeen added that he believed the government had not made attempts to initiate a dialogue on the issue of living costs, although the opposition said they were willing to negotiate on the matter even though they did not agree to the current devaluation strategy being pursued.

“Obviously there are a lot of protesters here, but the government does not want to listen,” he said. “Lots of people are suffering.”

Thasmeen said that accusations that the country’s political opposition had been “misleading” international media was an “oversimplification” of the issues behind the protests.

“The international media are professionals, many of who will already know the facts of the protests, I don’t see it will be possible to manipulate them,” he said.

Thasmeen claimed that reports of excessive force against protesters had been accurate, adding that MDP supporters led by their parliamentary leadership had been “violently charging” protest crowds while police were attempting to disperse peaceful protesters.

In light of the factional divides occurring within the DRP between Thasmeen and the Z-DRP faction linked to former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, the current party head said that apparent collaboration between the two groups was not related to the internal situation of the party.

“It is the duty of responsible politicians to try and find solutions to this problem [living costs],” he said. “There are a number of opposition I believe who have become involved with these protests.”

Thasmeen added that it was inevitable that although the protests has been initiated by a “youth movement” they had become politicised with involvement of figures such as former DRP Deputy Leader Umar Naseer and MP Ahmed Mahlouf.

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President grants clemency to two convicted criminals

President Mohamed Nasheed has granted clemency to two convicted criminals who were found guilty of drug related charges, reports SunFM.

SunFM reported that the two were identified as Ahmed Izhan Rasheed, Green Lily, Male’ and Ahmed Imsaah of Lhaviyani Atoll Naifaru.

The Department of Penitentiary and Rehabilitation Service (DPRS) told SunFM that both of them were released according to the Clemency Act and that if they committed any crime their sentence would be reinstated, in addition to any further sentences.

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317 protesters were arrested and 75 were injured in protests, claims MP Mahlouf

Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP)’s MP Ahmed Mahlouf has claimed that 317 protesters have been arrested over the past four days and 75 persons injured, according to daily newspaper Haveeru.

Haveeru reported that Mahlouf said among the persons arrested there were 203 persons whose whereabouts “are now unknown”.

The government has claimed that all but 14 of those arrested have been released, after the court extended their period of detention.

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Dead baby found in swimming area

A police officer swimming in the track area on thew south side of Male’ this afternoon discovered the corpse of a premature baby underwater.

Police Sub-Inspector Ahmed Shiyam confirmed to Minivan News that a dead female baby was found in the track swimming area.

”The baby has now been taken to Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital (IGMH) for examinations,” Shiyam said. ”We can’t confirm how old the baby is.”

IGMH spokesperson Zeentha Ali said doctors were currently examining the body and that the hospital would comment once the examination was complete.

Local media SunFM reported that the baby was bleeding when it was taken out of the water and that the umbilical cord was still attached. Haveeru published a picture of infant which appeared to have been put in a plastic bag.

In November last year another abandoned newborn female baby was discovered alive in some bushes near the Wataniya telecommunications tower in Hulhumale’.

As a Muslim country, abortion is illegal in the Maldives except to save a mother’s life, or if a child suffers from a congenital defect such as thalassemia. But anecdotal evidence points overwhelmingly to a high rate of abortion.

Examining the subject in late 2009, Minivan News referred to a 2007 report from the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) that concluded that widespread premarital and extramarital sex, high rates of divorce and remarriage (including sex between marriages), and poor access and practice of contraception could lead to a high number of unwanted pregnancies in the country.

The IPPF interviewed four demographically-diverse focus groups, and revealed that induced abortions were common among women and girls in Male’ with most ostensibly taking place in unsafe circumstances.

All four groups said that despite being illegal, sex outside of marriage was commonplace, especially among young people. Nor was it uncommon for married men to have affairs with unmarried girls.

The report found that the stigma of having a child out of wedlock compels women and girls to opt for abortions. Two focus groups of unmarried boys and girls asserted that abortion was widespread. Some said they knew of girls as young as 12 who had undergone abortions and each knew at least one person who had terminated a pregnancy.

However the IPPF never obtained government permission to formally carry out a wider study because of the qualitative nature of its research, and its findings were never acknowledged or made public.

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Local sports star reported injured in police standoff during fifth night of Male’ protests

A well-known local football star has been sent to Sri Lanka for medical treatment after suffering serious injuries during a fifth night of protests in the Maldivian capital.

Media reported that Ahmed Assad ‘Adubarey’ was injured when he was caught and crushed between police riot shields.

Police had restricted protesters to the open area around the tsunami monument and the artificial beach area in the capital Male’ after complaints from business owners and residents around the Majeedhee Magu and Chandanee Magu intersection, a two-lane road the demonstrators have dubbed the Maldives’ “Tahrir Square.”

Protesters split up to try and reach the area, with 10 people including Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) MP Ahmed Mahlouf arrested by police and released later in the evening.

Those that reached the intersection were immediately dispersed by police, with several injuries reported.

It is thought that 14 demonstrators arrested during the week’s protests currently remain in custody after the Criminal Court issued warrants extending their detention.

A pickup truck with loudspeakers used by the opposition was damaged and looted by a group of seven young men near the Heniveru police station, in front of 600 demonstrators.

‘’We are residents of this area and you have caused much disturbance to us,” one of the men said, facing down the protesters. “You cannot move even a step forward. If you have the guts, take one step forward and you will see what happens,’’ he said, as 600 people stood silent.

Police are trying to locate the driver of the pickup.

‘’We had a report that a pick-up used by the protesters was destroyed by a group of people and we are now investigating the case,’’ said Sub-Inspector Ahmed Shiyam.”So far no one has been arrested in connection to the incident.’’

The opposition has maintained that the protests are ‘youth-led’ over concerns at the rising cost of living, despite the active leadership of MPs loyal to the former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom’s faction of the opposition.

Certain activists said to belong to the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) are also said to have been involved in the protests, along with other political parties.

Meanwhile, US Assistant Secretary of State Robert Blake has told a press conference in Colombo that the budget deficit was the Maldives’ most pressing issue, and the at the opposition was obliged to assist in resolving the matter.

“The government has laid out a series of steps with the advice of the International Monetary Fund,” Reuters reported Blake as saying. “If the opposition opposes those steps, then it’s incumbent on them to divulge what their own plan would be and then to engage in good-faith negotiations with the government.”

President Nasheed’s Press Secretary, Mohamed Zuhair, said in a statement that the country “should unite for the common good.”

“If the opposition Z-DRP faction does not like the government’s economic policies, we call on it to set out an alternative, credible economic plan to reduce the budget deficit.”

Tourism insiders also alleged yesterday that growing international coverage of the protests has negatively impacted tourist interest from certain travel markets at the Arabian Travel Market in Dubai.

“Travel operators in Taiwan have said they are postponing and cancelling group bookings because of negative perceptions [of safety] in the Maldives,” a tourism source attending the expo told Minivan News yesterday.

“We just had another two confirmed bookings cancelled today because of reports of riots and instability. We worked hard to get these bookings and the potential domino effect is really worrying – people panic.”

In addition to these claims, the National Council of the ruling Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) yesterday announced that it had approved a resolution to conduct “direct action to defend the government, the constitution of the Republic of the Maldives, the President of the Maldives and senior government officials” against an opposition-led protest planned for Friday afternoon.

The group claimed at the time that it was responding to threats by opposition figures to “torture and kill” the president and other ministers at Republic Square.

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Auditor General presented with letter of appointment

The Maldives’ new Auditor General Niyaz Ibrahim was formally appointed by President Mohamed Nasheed yesterday, following approval by parliament.

Nasheed present Niyaz with a letter of appointment during a ceremony at the President’s Office before Supreme Court Judge Abdulla Areef yesterday morning, and requested he comprehensively audit all government authorities, and other institutions and the entire state treasury.

The President’s Office said that all independent institutions established under the new constitution of the Maldives should function as envisaged by the constitution to ensure the country’s progress.

The Maldives has been without an auditor general for over a year. The former auditor general was dismissed by parliament for purchasing a tie and transport on government money, a week after requesting an audit of all current and former government ministers.

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IFJ releases South Asian “Press Freedom in Peril” report

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ)‘s 2011 ‘Press Freedom in Peril‘ for South Asia has claimed there are “several matters of detail on which discord between journalists and the government is rife” in the Maldives.

The report, produced on behalf of the South Asia Media Solidarity Network (SAMSN) of which the Maldives National Journalists’ Association (MJA) is a member, states that “going beyond the perception-based indexes of press freedom that have put Maldives among the most rapidly improving countries, there are certain difficulties that journalists in the nation continue to face, even if these are not reflected in the broad numerical indexes, which are admittedly of limited value.”

The reports claims that journalists covering opposition demonstrations in October 2010 were been “beaten with batons, some of them shackled and a number briefly detained,” with police claiming that this occurred because “some of the journalists covering the demonstration had started engaging them in a confrontational spirit.”

The report also noted the opposition party had blamed the alleged assaults on journalists on Parliamentary Group Leader of the ruling Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), “who had, in the weeks preceding the event, made a number of public statements that suggested a deep antipathy towards the media.”

Manik referred to private TV channels in the Maldives as the fruit of ‘ill-gotten’ wealth and vowed to teach them a lesson,” the report claimed.

Subsequent findings from the Maldives Media Council (MMC) had “sought to be all things to all people, calling on journalists to follow a certain code of practice when covering events such as opposition led demonstrations, while at the same time, reprimanding the police for not giving adequate space for the media in their effort to record the protests.”

“Journalists needed to adhere to a certain standard of discipline, and the police needed to provide sufficient leeway for honest journalistic effort,” the report said, citing the MMC.

Attempts to devise a code of ethics and self-regulation for the country’s journalists by the MJA had been derailed by the state-owned media, the report claimed, “which was indifferent to this initiative, [and] which has rendered the code inoperative.”

The report noted a protest in October where four journalists from the private radio station DhiFM “were compelled to undertake a protest against their own employer when it turned out that the management had revealed the identity of a source used for a report on a tourist resort.”

“Irked by the content of the report, the resort management sacked the employee. The journalists who protested against their management’s unethical decision to reveal the identity of a news source, were in turn fired,” the report noted.

The report also highlighted the arrest of two Haveeru journalists in February 2011 “for interrogation” over leaked pornographic videos obtained from a Facebook blackmailing ring, which reportedly included material involved known public figures, and police efforts to obtain a warrant to search the newspaper’s offices, which was not executed.

A consistent concern throughout the year was the government’s decision to remove all government advertising from the media and publish an official gazette, depriving the industry of income, the report noted.

“By limiting the visibility of government advertisements, it has led to fears of bid-rigging and corruption in the award of official contracts. It has also caused considerable financial distress to the independent media,” the report stated.

The Miadhu newspaper had been compelled to move offices as a result of the decision, it claimed.

Read the full report: Free Speech in Peril: Press Freedom in South Asia 2010-11

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Comment: Climate change a real and imminent threat to the Maldives

Climate change is a very real and imminent threat to the Maldives, the smallest nation in Asia, which lost 20 islands during the 2004 tsunami. Since then, the government has gone strictly carbon neutral in a bid to protect its population from the rising sea.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague has described climate change as “perhaps the 21st century’s biggest foreign policy challenge”.

He has stressed that “a world which is failing to respond to climate change is one in which the values embodied in the United Nations will not be met”.

Indeed, the UN Charter makes clear that a central purpose of that organisation is to “achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural or humanitarian character”.

Climate change is just such a problem – and its impacts and costs fall disproportionally on developing countries. That is deeply unfair. So it is only right that in Cancun last December the 16th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change reaffirmed the commitment from developed countries in Copenhagen in December 2009 jointly to mobilise $100bn of climate finance a year by 2020, to address the adaptation needs of developing countries and help them to limit their carbon emissions.

The UK takes this commitment very seriously and recognises the need for urgent action. The British Government has therefore allocated £2.9bn of Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) to international climate finance for the period 2011/12 to 2014/15 (including our Fast Start commitment). This will be administered through our International Climate Fund (ICF), which has just been formally established. We expect to spend about 50 percent of the total on adaptation in poor and vulnerable countries, with around 30% for work to reduce carbon emissions and 20% for forestry.

We have three overall priorities for ICF funding, which we will deliver through both bilateral and multilateral channels in a way which maximises its impact and value for money:

  • To show that building low carbon, climate resilient growth at scale is both feasible and desirable;
  • To support adaptation in poor countries and help build an effective international framework on climate change;
  • To drive innovation, creating new partnerships with the private sector to support low carbon climate resilient growth

The ICF will also fund the climate element of an Advocacy Fund to support the poorest countries to take part more effectively in international negotiations; this will be formally established later this year.

This UK funding will play an important role in helping to mobilise ambitious global action on climate change. But the UK is the only major donor so far to have made specific finance commitments up to 2015. More is needed to meet the Copenhagen commitment of $100bn a year by 2020. We look to other donors too to make significant and ambitious financial pledges, and we look to business to play an important role, since we expect the target to be reached through a mix of public and private finance.

As the Stern Review in 2006 made clear, the clock is ticking. With every passing year, the global cost of effective action to tackle climate change grows greater. The time to act is now.

John Rankin is the British High Commissioner to the Maldives and Sri Lanka.

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

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