President Mohamed Nasheed has said the government will always respect the people’s voice but will not cave under the pressures of small groups who terrorise and vandalise public spaces.
Speaking a ceremony informing islanders of upcoming development projects in Laamu Atoll Gan, the President declared that street violence will not bring down the government – a statement he claimed was especially clear to himself and his party (Maldivian Democratic Party/MDP).
Referring to the series of anti-government protests which have persisted on Male’ for nearly three weeks, the President said the protesters’ call to release Criminal Court Chief Judge Abdulla Mohamed from Special Forces custody stemmed from their frustration with losing power.
He added that the opposition’s attempt to regain power by taking to the streets is a hindrance to national development, further stating that the protests are an abuse of the people’s constitutional right to free expression.
Instead, he requested constructive criticism from disgruntled parties.
Observing that many of the Maldives’ sectors are comprised of educated professionals, he regretted that the judicial courts had not been established along similar lines.
President Nasheed also indicated that all the institutions in every sector of the country comprised of well educated and trained professionals, but expressed his regret stating that he has been unable to elevate the judicial courts to similar standards.
“Our aim is to appoint qualified and responsible Judges to our court houses similar to the standards of the social and economic institutions in the nation,” Nasheed said.
The Attorney General’s (AG) office has said Chief of Defence Force Moosa Ali Jaleel can not be held individually responsible for the arrest of Criminal Court Chief Judge Abdulla Mohamed.
The AG had appealed the Criminal Court summons of Jaleel, who never appeared as per the court’s original summons.
Presenting the AG’s appeal at the High Court Deputy Solicitor General Ahmed Usham reminded those present that Judge Abdulla’s lawyers had filed the case against Jaleel at the Criminal Court, citing the judge’s arrest by Maldives National Defence Force (MNDF) on the request of Maldives Police Service, local media reports.
Usham contended that the decision to arrest the judge was made by MNDF, which therefore should be summoned to the court. As Chief of Defence Force, Jaleel cannot be summoned over a case with which he has no direct affiliation.
Usham said the Attorney General’s office would represent the MNDF at court in the event that it is summoned.
When asked to specify the reasons why the Chief of Defence Force could not be summoned to court over the matter, Usham referred the court to the AG’s office.
Observing that the constitution requires every person and institution to comply with court orders, the court next inquired why Jaleel had not presented himself at the Criminal Court.
Usham responded that the High Court had issued a counter-stay order.
According to local media, the court will announce its verdict at the next hearing.
Meanwhile, Police Commissioner Mohamed Faseeh has also been prevented from appearing at the Criminal Court by a counter stay order on appeal at the High Court.
Gaaf Dhaal Atoll Thinadhoo island court was held under locked conditions by supporters of ruling Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) for failing to administer justice within the courts.
After entering the court room to protest their grievances the islanders were escorted outside by a court official who locked the door. The crowd subsequently grabbed the court keys from the official and later handed them over to police, one islander said.
Gaaf Dhaal Atoll Gadhdhoo court magistrate Mohamed Ragib Ahmed was also prevented from coming to the island today, where he was to rule on a defamation case against MDP council member Mohamed Hassan Didi.
According to local media, Ragib was transported by police on a gulf craft launch to Thinadhoo where approximately 200 MDP supporters prevented him from coming ashore. Meanwhile, five men boarded the launch and several others tailed him back to Gadhdhoo.
Ibrahim Shahid of Baa Atoll Thulaadhoo, accused of stealing Rf18 million (US$1.1 million) from a State Bank of India (SBI) account belonging to three brothers of local motorcycle retailer Sheesha, has been apprehended in Sri Lanka.
Shahid will arrive in the Maldives on Sri Lankan Airways UL flight this evening, police have said. He is one of three suspects wanted under an Interpol Red Notice for the affair.
On November 24 2011 the account owners discovered that several unauthorised transfers had been made from their joint personal savings account to an unidentified recipient, the first transaction being made on November 9.
Following the discovery the Sheesha brothers Ahmed Hassan Manik, Hussain Husham and Ibrahim Husham said the transfer had been made to a Bank of Maldives account with a forged document using Manik’s name. The brothers said they would sue SBI and requested the bank take full responsibility for the theft.
Meanwhile, then police Sub-Inspector Ahmed Shiyam said the head of the criminal group had been arrested with documents.
‘’But the court released him and he immediately left the country,’’ Shiyam said at the time. ‘’We have another person held in detention, and we are looking for other three suspects including the person we arrested before.’’
Police Sub-Inspector Hussain Haneef today said Shahid was arrested during “a joint operation coordinated by Maldivian and Sri Lankan security forces.”
Meanwhile, Judge Haathif Hilmy and the lawyers involved in the case are deliberating over how to submit documents relevant to the case as certain papers contain confidential information and a police investigation is ongoing.
The Maldives has topped a poll of most desirable travel destinations among its UK customers, according to a study by tour giant Kuoni. The country has held the rank since 2005.
The Maldives was followed by Thailand, Sri Lanka, the United Arab Emirates (Dubai) and the USA, including New York holidays.
“The Maldives also retained its top slot for honeymoon destinations and topped the wish list for digital natives, better known as Generation X, Y and Z. Sri Lanka holidays retained ‘Number one Destination for Weddings’, Kuramathi Island Resort in the Maldives kept the top slot for ‘Family Destinations’, as did Thailand holidays for solo travelling,” read a statement from the tour operator.
Specific trends in demand identified in the customer survey were, according to Kuoni, “a thirst for discovery, authenticity of experience, social responsibility, and face to face contact with a travel expert when booking.”
The Commonwealth will provide technical expertise to the Maldives to help resolve the ongoing judicial crisis in the Maldives, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has stated.
High Commissioner of the Maldives to the UK, Dr Farahanaz Faizal, met with Deputy Secretary-General of the Commonwealth Mmasekgoa Masire-Mwamba this week and raised “the urgent need to modernise the Judiciary to international standards and possible Commonwealth assistance in this regard.”
The crisis was sparked on January 16 when the government ordered the military to detain Chief Judge of the Criminal Court, Abdulla Mohamed, after he filed a High Court injunction against his police summons.
Allegations against the judge dating back to 2005 include misogyny, sexual deviancy, throwing out an assault case despite the confession of the accused, political bias, obstruction of police duty, disregarding decisions of high courts, deliberately holding up cases involving opposition figures, barring media from corruption trials, ordering the release of suspects detained for serious crimes without a single hearing, maintaining “suspicious ties” with family members of convicts sentenced for dangerous crimes, and releasing a murder suspect “in the name of holding ministers accountable” who went on to kill another victim.
In one instance Abdulla Mohamed was accused of requesting that two underage victims of sexual assault act out their attack in court, in front of the perpetrator.
The judge had previously been under investigation by the Judicial Services Commission (JSC), but had successfully sought an injunction from the Civil Court against his further investigation by the judicial watchdog.
The ongoing detention of the judge has polarised public opinion in the Maldives and resulted in several weeks of opposition-led protests consisting of between 200-400 people, some of them resulting in violence and injuries to police, protesters and journalists.
Judge was “clearly demonstrating his independence”: ICJ Australia
Earlier this week ABC Radio in Australia aired an interview with John Dowd, President of the Australian branch of the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), who stated that Judge Abdulla Mohamed had “clearly been demonstrating independence as he’s supposed to do and the government doesn’t like it.”
None of the government’s allegations against the judge warranted his arrest, Dowd argued, “and it’s clear that the must be immediately released. This will do serious damage to the Maldives internationally and their tourist industry is a big part of their income and they just can’t allow this to go on.”
The Maldivian judiciary, Dowd claimed, was “generally competent”.
“It’s not a legally focused country. They’ve had a change of government after some 30 odd years and there’s obviously a settling down period and they do need assistance in terms of bringing their legal system up to date. But nonetheless, there is nothing wrong with the way the judges carry out their duties and it’s just a classic situation of a government not liking someone’s decision.
“It’s got a funny legal system in that there are aspects of Sharia law in it and British Commonwealth law and so on. But I would have thought that the Commonwealth Secretariat could have arranged some judges or someone that could go in there to mediate, and the Commonwealth is the more likely basis for resolving the issue. It really is very difficult for outsiders to intervene and I don’t think the UN is the correct body,” Dowd told the ABC.
Maldives Foreign Minister Ahmed Naseem responded to the criticism on ABC Radio the following day.
The government, he said, did not want to keep Abdulla Mohamed under arrest, but did not want him sitting on the bench until the charges against him were cleared – “but the point here is that we are in a Catch-22 situation – which court do we go to?
“Existing judges swore themselves in unilaterally without looking into the relevant clauses of the constitution, which says that they have to be sworn in according to the new constitution.
“Now, this new constitution strictly stipulates that these judges should have qualification to act as judges. The present judges that we have don’t have these qualifications.
“There are quite a lot of people whose interests are vested with these judges. That is, there are politicians connected to the former regime, who have many court cases. Now all these court cases are being held by the judge who is under detention at the moment. No cases have been conducted on this and no sentence has been passed. So it’s in the interests of the opposition to see that this judge remains as a judge.”
The country’s “entire judiciary is at stake”, Naseem argued. “What democracy can we have, when we don’t have a proper judicial system and we can’t dispense justice properly? The democracies of the world should really help us and find ways of sorting this issue out. We have requested UN bodies to help us in this and they’ve promised to send us some people to sit down with us and work something through.”
Criminal Court letter
Meanwhile, a group of Criminal Court judges this week sent a letter to Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Ahmed Faiz, contending that the Supreme Court had as much responsibility for the crisis as President Mohamed Nasheed.
Ensuring an independent judiciary as envisioned in the new constitution adopted in August 7, 2008 was “a legal as well as national duty” of the Supreme Court, the judges noted, adding that it was “regrettable” that the Criminal Court’s functions have not been developed in line with the changes to the criminal justice system.
Among the main points raised in the letter included the Supreme Court abolishing an article in the Judicature Act – “without any discussions with anyone” – that stipulated the formation of judicial councils, intended to represent all courts and provide advice and counsel.
The Supreme Court also took over a case filed at the Civil Court challenging the legality and validity of the JSC’s process for vetting candidates to the High Court “in the name of public interest litigation” and dismissed the case without issuing a verdict.
Moreover, the letter stated, the Chief Justice “turned a deaf ear” to numerous complaints from the public as well as judges and took no action regarding Chief Judge Abdulla Mohamed.
The judges also criticised the Supreme Court for not undertaking efforts towards dialogue with the government or President Nasheed to resolve the current crisis, calling on the Chief Justice to bring both sides to the negotiating table.
The letter took note of inconsistent standards and rulings made by different judges of the Criminal Court regarding extension of detention and evaluating evidence as well as the release of suspects detained for serious crimes, and referred to a list of “urgently needed” reforms previously recommended to the Supreme Court.
A documentary regarding New7Wonders, aired on South Korean national broadcaster KBS, has drawn on the Maldives’ experience with the foundation and ignited controversy in the country regarding the nature of the competition.
Korea’s Jeju island was announced as one of the winners in the competition, along with the Amazon rainforest, Vietnam’s Halong Bay, Argentina’s Iguazu Falls, Indonesia’s Komodo, the Philippines’ Puerto Princesa underground river, and South Africa’s Table Mountain.
Votes were collected online and via paid SMS and phone voting in the various countries, in collaboration with telecom sponsors. Final vote counts for the winners were not revealed, however New7Wonders maintains that the process is “uniquely democratic”.
Following the airing of the program in South Korea, founder of the Swiss-based New7Wonders operation and self-described filmmaker, museum curator, aviator and explorer, Bernard Weber, visited the country to denounce it.
“Only a few reporters were able to attend the conference due to the short notice,” noted the Korea Herald.
“Since the announcement [about Jeju] was made, however, media outlets and activists here have been raising suspicions concerning the foundation’s identity, the money Jeju spent to be chosen and whether it was fair for government officials to take part in the voting multiple times,” the paper reported.
During the press conference, President of the Jeju Tourism Organisation Yang Young-keun revealed that Jeju residents and tourism officials spent 20 billion won (US$18 million) on international phone voting for the competition.
“With the tourism industry accounting for more than 80 percent of Jeju’s economy, 20 billion won does not seem like an unreasonably large amount of money,” Yang added.
Park Dae-seok, an official at Korea’s National Committee for Jeju New7Wonders of Nature, was also quoted as stating that “with Jeju’s 500,000 people, it would have been impossible to have the island named the New Seven Wonders and it is only fair to allow multiple voting in this sense.”
The Maldives’ cabinet announced it was withdrawing from the competition in May 2011, after claiming to have received unexpected demands for cash not explicitly specified in the original contract, in order to continue to “compete meaningfully” in the competition.
Indonesia followed suit, with the country’s tourism authorities announcing the withdrawal of Komodo from the running. In both instances, New7wonders insisted that the Maldives and Komodo remained in the competition while seeking new promoters in both countries.
Demands included ‘sponsorship fees’ (‘platinum’ at US$350,000, or two ‘gold’ at US$210,000 each) and the funding of a ‘World Tour’ event whereby the Maldives would pay for a delegation of people to visit the country, provide hot air balloon rides, press trips, flights, accommodation and communications.
In a comment piece published on Minivan News, New7wonders spokesman Eamonn Fitzgerald responded that the authority to withdraw a participant from the campaign “is a decision for New7Wonders alone, not for any government agency.”
“With the Maldives still a finalist, the critical choice to be made by the key decision-makers in the Maldives is whether to support the campaign or not,” Fitzgerald said at the time.
“I think that it would be a good idea for all the leaders in the Maldives to be active participants in the campaign for the simple reason that it makes good business sense. After all, this is why so many countries, with their public and private sectors, are enthusiastically involved in this global event.”
Voting controversy
Besides Jeju in South Korea, other winning countries responded energetically to the campaign, notably developing countries with large populations desperate to boost tourism revenue.
Vietnam’s central bank in November 2011 sent an urgent communication to the country’s financial institutions, urging them to force their employees to vote for Vietnam’s Halong Bay in the New7wonders competition.
“Vietnamese officials, perhaps mindful of the growing importance of tourism to the economy, are going the extra mile to try to secure victory, pulling on the many control levers available to the pervasive Communist party,” the FT reported.
However some Vietnamese tourism officials cited by the FT raised concerns about the country’s expenditure on paid voting to win the competition, suggesting that the money and time “would be better spent cleaning up the worsening pollution in Halong Bay, raising safety standards on tour boats after two fatal sinkings in recent years and improving the overall environment for tourism.”
President of the Philippines, Noynoy Aquino, also urged his population to hit the phones and vote for the Puerto Princesa Underground River.
“In the Philippines we have no less than 80 million cellphone users sending nearly 2 billion text messages every day. All we need is one billion votes, so that is half a day,” Aquino said, during the river’s campaign push – a commitment of US$58 million, at PHP2.50 (US$0.058) a vote.
In the Maldives, the Swiss foundation approached telecom provider Dhiraagu seeking US$1 million in sponsorship to be its telecom partner in the Maldives, a figure that dropped by half when the company complained that the price was too high.
In a recorded interview with Korean journalists, obtained by Minivan News, Bernard Weber defends the sponsorship as “not a requirement, but a proposition.”
New7Wonders Director, Jean-Paul de la Fuente, interjects: “The Maldives people basically lied. They said if they did not bring sponsors we had threatened they would be expelled from the campaign. That’s a lie. There was no conditional sponsorship, and the proof is that five of the seven winners had no sponsors.”
Fuente continued: “The reason the Maldives person lied is because he had a personal financial interest in another business. What he did was show selected documents that clearly said there was no condition. When he resigned an alternative civic group tried to become a new committee, and he threatened them not to become a new committee.
“Unfortunately the Maldives was until recently a dictatorship, and maybe they still have some of the bad habits of a dictatorship. But we are absolutely clear that the Maldives lied,” Fuente said, and identified Managing Director of the Maldives Marketing and PR Corporation (MMPRC), Simon Hawkins, as “the main problem.”
In response, Hawkins told Minivan News today that “the only financial incentive and gain was to save the country over 500,000 US dollars for ridiculous charges from a disreputable organisation, and I succeeded. The Cabinet did their own investigation and reached their own conclusions, which was the same as ours. I also fail to see how Mr Weber can say that we were lying with the concrete evidence against him.”
Following the Maldives’ withdrawal, New7wonders approached the Maldives Association of Tourism and Travel Operators (MATATO) to take over from the MMPRC as the organising committee of the Maldives’ campaign – a move opposed by the MMPRC, as “the democratically elected Government of the Maldives is the only legitimate authority to act in the name of the Maldives and its people”.
Secretary General of MATATO, Maleeh Jamal, said at the time that the association was considering taking over the event in the government’s stead, as the studies offered by New7Wonders promised an “enormous return on investment”, and “US$500,000 for such an award would be quickly recovered. Although the money was a concern, we had a fair chance of winning,” he said at the time.
Asked today whether the MMPRC had threatened MATATO not to continue in the competition, Jamal said he did not wish to comment: “It was a huge controversy and now the whole saga is over,” he said.
Business model
The studies referred to by MATATO were also referenced by Fitzgerald in a letter to Minivan News following the cabinet decision to withdraw:
Study published by Pearson of London in April 2010: US$5 billion overall in economic, tourism and brand image values for the participants and winners in the man-made New 7 Wonders of the World campaign;
Study published by Grant Thornton of South Africa in April 2011: US$1.012 billion each in economic and employment value for the first five years for being successful in the New7Wonders of Nature;
New study published by JDI of South Korea in May 2011: up to US$1.837 billion each per annum in economic benefits for being successful in the New7Wonders of Nature.
The New 7 Wonders of Nature was the second competition of its kind to be held by the foundation. The first, concerning man-made wonders of the world, awarded the title to Chichen Itza in Mexico, Christ the Redeemer in Brazil, Colosseum in Rome, Great Wall in China, Machu Picchu in Peru, Petra in Jordan, and the Taj Mahal in India. The Pyramids of Giza in Egypt – one of the original 7 wonders, was eventually awarded an honorary title after the Ministry of Tourism complained.
Following Indonesia’s decision to withdraw Komodo, Indonesian blogger Priyadi Nurcahyo Faith collected 15 years of tourism statistics for three of the winning attractions in the first competition, as well as national tourism arrivals, and graphed them in an attempt to correlate the effect of winning the competition.
Visitor numbers to 2007 New 7 Wonders winners. Source: Priyardi's Place
Machu Picchu recorded high growth in (overseas) visitors between 1998 and 2000 of over 20 percent a year. Visitor numbers slumped over 16 percent in 2001, returning to 40 percent in 2005. By 2006, visitors had plunged to 1.14 percent. In 2007 – the year Machu Picchu was announced a winner of the New 7 wonders competition, it had risen to 14 percent, slowing to 12 percent in 2008. In 2009 growth plunged 5 percent, worsening to 18 percent in 2010. Overall arrivals to Peru increased 41 percent in 2004, and 14 percent in the year of the competition. Arrivals dropped 4 percent in 2009.
The Taj Mahal in India showed a broadly similar trend. Foreign visitors increased dramatically 62 percent in 2005, before plunging 17 percent the following year. In 2007, visitor numbers grew 19 percent, but in 2008 the increase was less that 1 percent. Visitors dropped almost 17 percent in 2009. The increase in tourism arrivals to India as a whole continued a downward trend from 13 percent in 2005 to 7 percent in 2008.
Petra, which recorded both foreign and domestic visitors, saw a significant spike in 2007 of over 60 percent, building on a broadly positive trend from a dramatic increase of 93 percent in 2004. Visitors increased 38 percent in 2008, dropped nine percent in 2009, and increased 34 percent in 2010.
At the same time, overall visitors to Jordan dropped 3 percent in 2007, despite almost 19 percent growth the year before.
The blogger’s conclusion was that the New 7 Wonders contribution to visitor numbers was difficult to correlate amid other factors – but was likely “not so significant”.
The controversy surrounding Indonesia and the Maldives’ withdrawal from the competition, and most recently the growing attention in South Korea, has sparked interest in the foundation’s business model.
A ‘New7Wonders Foundation’ is registered in the Swiss canton of Zurich as a charitable foundation, however the New7Wonders own website describes it as “a major, global-scale proof of a business concept based on mass virtual online dynamics creating concrete economic positive outcomes in the real world”.
The Maldives Tourism Ministry initially paid a US$199 participation fee and signed a contract not with the foundation, but rather a commercial arm of the operation: New Open World Corporation (NOWC), which listed its address on the contract as a law firm in the Republic of Panama.
The fate of the money paid to NOWC by tourism authorities, sponsors and telecom partners in unclear. Funds raised, the website states, are used “to set up and run the global New7Wonders voting platform, to run the first campaign that chose the Official New 7 Wonders of the World, to run the current campaign electing the Official New7Wonders of Nature, to run the New7Wonders organisation, [and] to create a surplus for distribution.”
Swiss law does not require charitable foundations to disclose how much they pay executives, unlike the UK, and no filings, declarations of assets or record of funds distributed are available on the foundation’s website.
Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al Baker has warned that the airline will re-consider flying to the Maldives if airport operator GMR maintains its apparent plan to raise airport handling fees at Ibrahim Nasir International Airport (INIA) by 51 percent.
Reuters reported that the airline was “‘dismayed’” over what it understood to be GMR’s plan to increase the handling fee at some future date, and suggested such a move would “threaten Quatar Airways’ continued presence in the Maldives.”
Noting that the Maldives’ economy is based on tourism, Akbar Al Baker called the planned increase “totally unreasonable.”
“If we or any other major player withdraws services because of these unwarranted and draconian measures, it will be the people of the Maldives who will lose out, affecting their livelihoods as they rely heavily on the tourism industry,” he said in a statement released on Wednesday.
“My message to the Maldives authorities is to think rationally about the future prosperity of your tourism industry. These steps may have not been thought through seriously by the airport operator and I urge them to think again.”
GMR spokesman Amir Ali said that the fee hike had already been made by the Maldives Airport Company Ltd (MACL) shortly before GMR assumed control of the airport, adding that while there were no plans for a further increase at present, prices were dependent on factors such as fuel prices.
“I believe the fee was increased because of the rise in fuel prices, but I’m not sure since the decision was made by MACL some time ago,” Ali said.
GMR had received no official communication from Qatar Airways, he added.
Since taking over INIA in 2010 GMR has made several adjustments to airport operations in an effort to match the airport’s facilities to those expected by visitors to the country’s upmarket resorts. While progress has been rapid, the local population has also voiced discontent with changes to baggage handling services and departure fees.
GMR was recently challenged in court over its recent attempt to collect an Airport Development Charge (ADC) beginning in 2012, a stipulation which was included in its concession agreement with the government. While the Maldives Civil Court ruled against the ADC in December, the government appealed the case to the High Court, declaring that it was obliged to honor its agreement with the airport developer.
Maldives Police Services has said it will adopt a zero-tolerance policy during protests if opposition demonstrators continue their current, increasingly violent trajectory which has sent four police officers to the hospital in the past two days.
Citing protesters’ recent use of fireballs, petrol bombs and bricks, police have said they will exercise full legal authority to prevent the ongoing anti-government protests from developing into acts of terrorism.
Opposition rotesters have demonstrated every night since January 16, when Criminal Court Chief Judge Abdulla Mohamed was arrested by military forces and detained at a training facility in Kaafu Atoll Girifushi. Opposition party members have drawn crowds of approximately 200 to 300 nightly to the area in front of the Maldives Monetary Authority (MMA) near the Male’ fish market, while ruling Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) members have taken to gathering at their party camp on the other side of the island.
Police and military forces have patrolled key areas of the island on a regular basis, nightly arresting individuals for violent activities.
Speaking of last night’s demonstration, Sub-Inspector Hussain Haneef said 37 individuals were arrested “for violence and acting against police orders.” He added that nine individuals have been released.
Mohamed Haisham, a protest coordinator and member of opposition Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM), said most individuals arrested last night were women and blamed any violent agitation on MDP, “who is giving money, drugs, alcohol and knives to gangs who are causing the problems.”
Haisham said protesters are undeterred by the police warnings. “Tonight’s protest will be very strong,” he informed Minivan News, adding that protests will continue until “the biggest one”, a rally scheduled for February 24.
Last night’s unrest also led to the breaking of windows at MDP headquarters and the Finance Ministry, as well as the windshield of a city bus.
Police have also launched an investigation into a Henveiru ward fire which broke out last night in the home of musician Ibra Rasheed, destroying a majority of the musical equipment belonging to himself and his son.
Rasheed, who claims not to belong to any party, has been producing music against the former government since the 1980s; between 1988 and 2003 he was arrested, jailed and banished to an island. “They arrested me for drugs, but everybody knows I don’t use drugs. They really arrested me for my music,” he said.
Since the current government came to power in 2008 Rasheed has been able to produce and sell six albums, however he claims being hassled by supporters of the former government for his work.
In 2010 Rasheed released the song “Black 30 Years” criticising the lifestyle of Abdulla Hameed, former Atolls Minister and half-brother to former president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom. “After that I was walking by the postal building and saw Shaheem Hameed [his son]. He refused to shake my hand and said he would sue me for what I did to his father,” Rasheed said. Soon after he was beaten up in the street, he said.
In the past several weeks, the threats have become more frequent.
“There are guys who come around on their motorbikes and tell me they are going to beat me and kill me. With these protests now they are coming more often, I am scared anything might happen to me so I stay at home. I think they were the ones who started the fire [in my son’s room].”
Rasheed said the door to his son’s room was locked and vacant when smoke began pouring out. House residents forced open the door and put out the flame, however all of the equipment inside was destroyed. “We kept my son’s computer for mixing and the guitars and most recording stuff in there,” he explained. “Someone told me the Islamic Bank can provide financial support, but I haven’t talked to the bank yet.” Rasheed said the damages amounted to Rf80,000 (US$5,200).
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