India has a moral obligation to safeguard democracy in the Maldives, Home Minister Mohamed Jameel has told the Press Trust of India (PTI).
Jameel said it would be a blow to India if the nascent democracy in Maldives failed to live up to its promises, PTI reported.
“It will be a moral obligation on the part of India to see that democracy is sustained at Maldives, and if not it will be a blow to India as well as it the closest ally to our country,” Jameel told PTI, thanking
Indian Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai for brokering the roadmap negotiations.
Several political parties in the talks had accused India of interference in Maldivian internal affairs.
Former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom’s Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM)’s two members have filed cases requesting the police to investigate into major breach of laws committed by former President Mohamed Nasheed during his short-lived tenure, local newspaper Haveeru has reported.
According to Haveeru, the first case filed by the two PPM members Ahmed “Maaz” Saleem and Ahmed Siddeeq include the alleged transgression against the judiciary by locking up of the Supreme Court in 2008, allowing police entry into Judicial Service Commission (JSC), illegally appointing JSC members, ordering the removal of the interim Chief Justice.
The other case is about the leasing of Male’ International Airport to India’s GMR in 2010 for 50 years.
Saleem claimed that the filing of the cases had been delayed as it was understood that Nasheed would not have allowed the police to carry out the investigations, reported Haveeru.
“After Nasheed has resigned all institutions have now become independent and without any political influence. Hence I have filed the case to carry out a probe in accordance with the law,” Haveeru quoted Saleem as saying.
Siddeeq meanwhile has said that further constitutional violations by the Former President is under evaluation and will be filed with the police for subsequent investigation.
The Maldives National Defence Force (MNDF) and police used a salt water cannons to break up a gathering of nearly 100 female supporters of Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) outside President Office on Tuesday afternoon.
The women marched to the President Office around 3:15pm to deliver a set of letters requesting President Dr Mohamed Waheed Hassan to resign, while the rest of the female demonstrators sat down outside the office holding boards bearing slogans including “Where is my vote?” and “Justice now”.
The women from all ages continued to call for President Waheed’s resignation while the police and MNDF on the scene ordered the women to leave the area.
Video footage circulating over the social media then show that the police aimed a high-pressure salt water cannon at the crowd for at least five minutes, but this did little to deter the women, who were then physically picked up by policewomen. Others were pushed back by policemen armed with shields.
Several eye witnesses alleged to Minivan News that “some policeman groped the female demonstrators, tore their clothes and used foul language” during the removal.
“Two women’s clothes were torn from the shoulders when the policemen tried to grab them. One woman’s veil was taken off and I saw her shouting at the police,” one of the demonstrator told Minivan News over the phone.
Another eye witness reported seeing a woman who was “dragged by her feet” after she refused to leave. “The women tried to shove him off and cover her body because her blouse was torn, but the policeman grabbed her hands,” the source claimed.
Several women were seeing resisting arrest while the policewomen attempted to grab some of the women hosed down by the salt water. Although, the crowds were dispersed from the President Office, the women continued to voice their discontent on the nearby streets until nightfall.
Police media official, Sub-Inspector Ahmed Shiyam, told Minivan News that female protesters forcibly crossed the police cordons and “intimidated the police”.
Police Commissioner Abdulla Riyaz at a press conference yesterday had vowed that police would “become feared by the most dreaded criminals”.
“[The women] forcibly crossed into the area near the President Office after intimidating the police guards at the cordon blocking the area. They were ordered to leave the area repeatedly before the police used force to remove them,” Shiyam said.
Responding to allegations that police used excessive force to subdue the gathering, Shiyam said “If anyone has any complaints they can follow the due process and file a complaint.”
“What we used was water. It is the least brutal force used to disperse a gathering,” he further added.
Speaking to Minivan News today, former Tourism Minister Dr Mariyam Zulfa said that before the protest outside the President Office nearly 500 female MDP supporters went to the Human Rights Commission of the Maldives (HRCM) to file a complaint over the police brutality.
She claimed the commission has so far failed to take any action.
“As we were coming back some went to the President Office to deliver letters to request Waheed resign. So while they did that, we sat down to peacefully protest. However, almost immediately police came and used a high pressure water hose,” said Dr Zulfa, who was also at the sit-down demonstration.
“There is no way to end this brutality,” she said. “The international community has failed to see this day after day. Anywhere else in the world this would be a shameless military coup.”
Meanwhile, later in the evening HRCM had issued a press statement condemning the police for using “excessive force” against the women while controlling today’s demonstration.
The commission also urged the police to to respect the people right to peaceful demonstration and asked them to refrain from any actions that will harm the dignity of women.
Women have been at the front line in MDP’s political movement to bring early elections, since the party’s candidate, former President Mohamed Nasheed was deposed in what the party calls a bloodless coup.
Recently, Amnesty International has also condemned attacks on a group of MDP women supporters in Addu Atoll by the security forces, after obtaining testimonies from victims of a crackdown on demonstrators at a rally during the recent visit to the MDP stronghold by new President.
The new government’s decision to allow extended resort leases to be paid in installments, rather than upfront at the end of the lease, will immediately take US$135 million of the country’s coffers, the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) has claimed.
New Tourism Minister Ahmed Adheeb was not responding at time of press. Former Tourism Minister Dr Mariyam Zulfa explained that Nasheed’s government had offered resorts the option of extending resort lease periods from 25 to up to 50 years.
“Under the regulations the resort lease period was extended to 50 years, with a clause that this would cost US$100,000 every year. But the regulations left open to interpretation how this was to be collected,” she said.
“The Nasheed government had requested that those resorts extending to a 50 year lease pay in a lump sum,” she said, “but while I was Tourism Minister, Gasim Ibrahim and Ahmed ‘Redwave’ Saleem kept pressuring me to let them pay on a yearly basis. They didn’t want to give any money to the government, and soon after the government changed they got what they wanted. [The installments] will only be payable at the end of the current lease periods – it is a huge loss to the treasury.”
According to the MDP, 25 parties had paid the new lease under Nasheed’s government, while a further 90 parties had signed up to extend the lease.
“Some of the resorts wanted it because it increased the value of the property, and therefore increased the value of the government’s asset,” Dr Zulfa explained. “Properties with a 50 year lease paid up front are much more attractive to investors, and encourage development.”
Dr Zulfa contended that not only did the change in policy forgo the country future earnings, “but now they’ve taken a sovereign loan of US$50 million – Tourism Minister Ahmed Adheeb was boasting about it on his Facebook page.”
“They said they need it to finance the budget shortfall – but what shortfall? There was no shortfall – not until they gave this loophole to the coup people who now won’t have to pay anything. They don’t care about the common people – infrastructure projects all over the country have stopped and contractors have been sent home. People [on the islands] are angry, upset and despairing,” Zulfa claimed.
Secretary General of the Maldives Association of Tourism Industry (MATI), ‘Sim’ Mohamed Ibrahim, said he couldn’t speculate on the impact of the decision, but said that negotiations to pay leases in advance had begun during Gayoom’s tenure as President.
“Resorts were willing to pay the government in advance for extensions of their lease,” he explained. “It was not just for development, but because it increases the value of a property and gives investors confidence. We recognized in good faith at the time that the government was in serious need of a cash injection.”
“Obviously, some people don’t agree with that. This came into effect during Nasheed’s government, which argued that if the lease was going to be paid annually, it would be renewed annually. Obviously the interpretations of the law are different.”
Former President and Leader of Progressive Party of the Maldives (PPM) Maumoon Abdul Gayoom has claimed “I had no role in the change of government”, while dismissing the accusations of his involvement in the ousting of his successor Mohamed Nasheed on February 7 as “baseless rumors”.
Nasheed’s Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) alleges that Gayoom was at the centre organising what the party insists was a bloodless coup d’état in which elements of police and Maldives National Defence Force (MNDF) were bribed to align with then-opposition demonstrators led by Gayoom’s PPM party forcing Nasheed to resign on February 7.
However, after returning to Maldives on Monday night from an unofficial trip to Malaysia, Gayoom defended himself claiming that “I had never attempted to over throw Nasheed’s government illegally or outside legal bounds”.
“I had no role in the change of government and such rumours are baseless,” Gayoom further claimed.
However, he noted that his party had protested within the legal bounds to resist unlawful acts of the government.
Meanwhile, Gayoom – whose 30-year-old rule came to an end after he lost the country’s first multiparty elections to Nasheed in 2008 – objected to MDP’s calls for early elections citing that the constitution gives “no room” for it.
He quoted the constitution’s stipulations which state elections must be held once in every five years or it shall be called if both the President and the Vice-President resign simultaneously or their offices become vacant at the same time.
Furthermore, noting that if the President resigns for any reason the constitution allows the Vice President to assume office and continue the remainder of his predecessor’s term – Gayoom said, “Waheed has been sworn in constitutionally”.
“Therefore, there is no room for an [early] election according to the constitution and in my opinion neither does politically.” Gayoom concluded, pledging full support to Waheed’s administration which is now run by a cabinet stacked with majority Gayoom loyalists.
Thousand of supporters of Gayoom gathered at the Republican Square and on the streets to welcome Gayoom, while Minivan News observed that security was elevated in the area and Gayoom was taken to his residence in a defence force car.
Commissioner of Police Abdullah Riyaz has outlined the Maldives Police Service (MPS)’s new operational priorities for 2012, and introduced newly appointed Deputy Commissioner of Police Hussein Waheed.
At a press conference yesterday, Riyaz said the new priorities of the police included prevention of drug trafficking, prevention of organised and violent crimes, road safety monitoring and counter-terrorism.
Riyaz said he would try to make the police into an institution “feared by the most dreaded criminals”.
“We will try our best to identify the criminals and ensure they are being tried for their charges with proper evidence,” he said.
Riyaz also said that political parties were accusing the police of “baseless accusations” and advised them to refrain from doing so.
“We would welcome peaceful protests. We will cooperate as well but when protesters resort to violence, damaging private and public property, the police will have to disperse the crowds. We are here to maintain the peace and order of the country,” he said.
“The police are the authorities that have to control demonstrations and questions are always asked about the way protests and demonstrations are controlled, especially by those on the receiving end,” he said.
He called upon parliament to make a law on protesting so that it would be a lot easier for the police to perform their duties under such a law.
Riyaz also highlighted the importance of passing of laws that were vital for the police work: “We ask parliament to pass the bills concerning the duties of the police such as an Evidence Act, Criminal Procedure Act and the Penal Code,” he said. Those bills have stalled at committee stage, in some cases for over a year.
Riyaz said that police were given the full operational independence and insisted that “none of the political figures or the government are trying to influence the police institution.”
He also said that he was trying to assign police officers to the islands after the February 8 arson attacks on police buildings, following a violent police crackdown on demonstrators in Male’.
Riyaz also said it was better if the Human Rights Commission (HRCM) and Police Intergrity Commission (PIC) investigated the events that unfolded on February 8.
Riyaz brushed off all the allegations that some police had come out to control the protests after consuming alchohol as “baseless nonsense”, and said that police were being linked to alcohol because they had been investigating a lot of alcohol cases.
Riyaz was Assistant Commissioner under Nasheed’s government prior to his dismissal in 2010. Asked about the legality of the appointment of a civilian to the post of Commissioner of Police – position usually given to ranked officers – Riyaz said that he had been appointed according to the rules under the police act.
“I was discharged from my duties while I was an assistant commissioner. After the change of government, I was asked to join the police force as they said the government required my services and had requested me to join,” he said Riyaz.
“I was reinstated to the same position I was before, and I was appointed to the Commissioner of Police afterwards,” continued Riyaz.
He praised newly appointed deputy police commissioner Waheed, stating that the Waheed was a “very experienced serviceman” and had done police training abroad. Riyaz assured that he would get full support from Waheed and that under their leadership, the police would “win the people’s trust.”
Deputy Commissioner of Police, Waheed, said that he will give full support to the commissioner and assured that he would remain committed and loyal.
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