Month: May 2014

Police seize illegal liquor from safari boat

Police have seized 185 bottles of illegal liquor from a safari boat and arrested four people – two locals and two foreigners.

The safari boat ‘Fatima’ was moored at Hulhumalé lagoon when the police boarded it with a search warrant

Consumption, possession and sale of alcohol is prohibited in the Maldives, except at  tourist resorts and safari boats with a special permit. While selling alcohol to locals is unlawful, local media have reported alcohol was being sold to Maldivians from ‘Fatima’.

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Health Ministry seeks to protect mothers and infants from HIV “time bomb”

New guidelines on preventing the transfer of HIV from mother to child will come into effect from Wednesday (May 7 2014), Ministry of Health and Gender has said.

The national guideline on prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV is underpinned by a need to equip the Maldives for what the Health Protection Agency has termed an HIV “time bomb.”

Programme Coordinator for the Reproductive Health Unit Naseera Nazeed has urged all pregnant women to get tested in their first semester.

“There is very high chance of saving the baby – 90% – if they are checked,” she said.

The guidelines aim to protect women of childbearing age from HIV, advise women with HIV against pregnancy, protect HIV positive mothers from infecting their children and providing support to HIV positive mothers and their families.

The Maldives identified the first infant with HIV in 2012. In February this year, the Indhira Gandhi Memorial Hospital (IGMH) transfused a pregnant women with HIV positive blood due to a technical error. Meanwhile, local media have alleged a 19-year-old HIV patient had given birth at IGMH in early April.

Programme Manager for the National HIV AIDS programme Abdul Hameed said the spate of HIV incidents this year had raised awareness on HIV and provided a boost to healthcare efforts.

“We are sending out the public a clear message, always to be sure of their status. HIV is everywhere, you don’t have to give your name, you just have to go and get tested. The result will be in 10 minutes,” he urged.

Not prepared

Lack of prevention programmes and specialized care for population groups at risk facilitate an HIV outbreak in the Maldives, Hameed said. Sex workers, gay men and intravenous drug users are particularly at risk, he said.

“We are sitting on a time bomb. We know those key populations exist [in Maldives],” stated Hameed. “At any time it can explode.”

The Maldives does not offer prevention services for gay men or sex workers, he said.

HIV patients prefer treatment abroad due to high levels of stigma and discrimination, he said, adding: “Even in the healthcare system itself there is ingrained discriminations.”

The healthcare system is ready for an outbreak, Hameed claimed, but said there are deficiencies that could hinder response to a crisis.

“The health system is ready, but we don’t have the civil society or organization networks. We may not be prepared,” he said.

A prevention workshop—the second of its kind—is underway from Tuesday to Wednesday (May 4 to May 6) to train health professionals on the new guidelines. A total of 31 participants from regional hospitals, populous atolls, Malé, Villimalé and Hulhumalé are taking part.

The Ministry also plans to hold a series of phone conferences to all atolls to further disseminate the information.

Former Minister of Health Dr Ahmed Jamsheed Mohamed said it was only through “incredible luck” the HIV virus had not spread throughout the country.

“All the habits that may lead to the spread of HIV is excessively in practice,” he claimed referring to sexual promiscuity and intravenous drug use in the Maldives.

Since the first case of HIV was detected in the country in 1991, 19 cases of HIV have been reported among Maldivians. However, the Health Ministry estimates numbers of HIV positive persons could be between 70 and 100.

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Deputy PG resigns, slams Criminal Court’s “obstruction” of criminal justice

Deputy Prosecutor General Hussein Shameem has resigned today, slamming the Criminal Court’s obstruction of criminal justice.

In a resignation statement, Shameem highlighted the Criminal Court’s failure to prosecute foreigners involved in drug trafficking, delays in issuing rulings on drug related offenses and “unreasonable obstacles” in filing cases at the court.

“These issues obstruct the proper functioning of the criminal justice system. I am deeply saddened to note the extreme delay on the part of those who have the power to address these issues,” he said.

Former Prosecutor General (PG) Ahmed Muizz appointed Shameem to the position shortly before he resigned ahead of a no confidence motion in November 2013. Shameem had previously held the position from 2009 – 2012.

The deputy PG’s resignation effectively brings the criminal justice system to a halt. The vacancy in the PG Office leadership means the state can no longer raise criminal charges.

Shameem has called on President Abdulla Yameen and the People’s Majlis to appoint a new PG immediately. The 17th People’s Majlis is in recess until the newly elected 18th People’s Majlis take the oath of office in June. But extraordinary sessions can still be held.

Yameen had nominated his nephew Maumoon Hameed for the position in December, but the Majlis narrowly voted to reject Hameed in March.

At loggerheads

The Prosecutor General Act states a new PG must be appointed within 30 days of vacancy. However, Shameem noted five months have passed since Muizz’s resignation and noted “severe difficulties” in carrying out the PG office’s duties.

The Criminal Court and PG office have been at loggerheads since January, with the court announcing it would not proceed with any criminal charges until the Majlis appointed a new PG.

Shameem sought Supreme Court assistance in late January, claiming the lower court’s failure to accept cases lead to a backlog and violated the rights of those held in pre-trial detention.

On the Supreme Court’s orders, the Criminal Court in early February announced it would resume hearings in ongoing cases, but would not accept new cases.

Shameem successfully sought a second order from the Supreme Court, and said the Criminal Court’s actions had lead to a backlog of over 500 cases. With the new order in late February, the court formulated new procedures the PG office must follow in filing cases.

In April, Shameem said the Criminal Court had rejected over 30 percent of cases filed, including serious offenses related to drugs, corruption and sexual abuse of children.

Recently, the Criminal Court requested the PG office to resend case documents related to corruption allegations against Supreme Court Justice Ali Hameed. The court claimed documents had been damaged in a coffee spill.

Shameem said he had notified President Abdulla Yameen, the People’s Majlis and the Supreme Court of the difficulties the PG office faces, but said, “to this day, no office has addressed any of the issues I have raised.”

The Criminal Court’s delays brings the effectiveness of a joint effort by the Maldives Police Service and PG office to expedite cases involving serious criminal offenses into question, Shameem said.

Judge Abdulla Mohamed, whose controversial detention in January 2012 triggered President Mohamed Nasheed’s ouster, heads the Criminal Court.

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Stalled Ali Hameed cases “exposes state of Maldivian judiciary,” says MDP

The opposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) has expressed “surprise and concern” with the revelation yesterday (May 4) that documents of a corruption case against Supreme Court Justice Ali Hameed were destroyed in a coffee spill at the Criminal Court.

An official from the Prosecutor General’s (PG) office told Minivan News that the Criminal Court requested resubmission of the case files three weeks ago, but has so far refused to present the allegedly damaged documents.

Justice Hameed is facing charges over the illegal transfer of credit from his state-funded mobile phone in 2010.

In a press release yesterday, the main opposition party stated that the lack of progress in cases involving Justice Hameed as well as “these incidents that occur when a case reaches court exposes quite well the state of the Maldivian judiciary.”

“As the documents of the corruption case raised by the state against Ali Hameed were destroyed after coffee was spilled on them, the party hopes that the Criminal Court will not decide that the charges cannot be proven for that reason,” the MDP’s press release stated in conclusion.

The Judicial Service Commission’s (JSC) regulations stipulate that action must be taken within 48 hours of a criminal case being filed against a judge. However, the judicial oversight body told local media last month that a decision would be made once the court decides to hear the case.

The Criminal Court’s media official told Minivan News on April 13 that the court had not decided whether or not to accept the case.

Cases filed by the PG office are scrutinised in the order of submission “to make sure all the paperwork is complete and that there are no missing documents,” he said. The process normally takes “two to three days,” he added.

The case against Justice Hameed – accused of abuse of authority to benefit a third party – was sent to the PG office in July 2013 by the Anti-Corruption Commission after investigating allegations in the 2010 audit report of the Department of Judicial Administration.

Auditors found that a Supreme Court Justice transferred MVR2,223 (US$144) from his state-funded mobile phone on different occasions during 2010.

Sex tapes

Justice Hameed is also the subject of investigations by both the police and the JSC over his alleged appearance in a series of sex tapes that emerged in May 2013.

A further video showed Hameed and a local businessman, Mohamed Saeed, discussing political influence in the judiciary.

After the secretly taped videos of Hameed engaging in sexual relations with three prostitutes in a Sri Lankan hotel room surfaced online, the JSC set up committees to investigate the case twice – in May and December 2013.

Both subcommittees unanimously recommended the JSC suspend Hameed pending an investigation.

However, in July 2013, the JSC disregarded the recommendation citing lack of evidence, while a JSC decision on the December subcommittee’s recommendation is still pending.

The MDP meanwhile stated that disgraced judges accused of corruption or blackmail should be suspended pending the outcome of a trial, noting that the practice was “regrettably” alien to the Maldivian judiciary.

Justice Hameed’s continued presence on the Supreme Court bench violated international best practices and judicial norms, the party contended.

Other cases

Meanwhile, the 2010 audit also discovered that MVR13,200 (US$856) was spent out of the apex court’s budget to repair a state-owned car used by an unnamed Supreme Court Justice, later revealed in the media to be Justice Hameed.

According to the police report cited by auditors, the driver of the justice’s car was responsible for the accident, which occurred on January 23, 2011.

However, the official driver insisted the car was undamaged when he parked and left it the previous night.

Despite the findings of the audit report, in March 2011 the Supreme Court dismissed allegations of corruption reported in local media regarding phone allowances and use of court funds to repair Justice Hameed’s car.

Moreover, in September 2011, the ACC began investigating allegations that over MVR50,000 (US$3,200) of state funds was spent on plane tickets for Justice Hameed’s official visit to China in December 2010.

The complainant alleged that Hameed also visited Sri Lanka and Malaysia both before and after his trip to China to attend a conference by the International Council of Jurists.

A return ticket on a direct flight from Malé to Beijing at time cost MVR16,686 (US$1,080).

Furthermore, in May 2012, the ACC revealed that Justice Hameed was among three sitting judges illegally occupying state-owned apartments.

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Maldives a target of regional terrorists, says Sri Lanka analyst

A Sri Lankan national arrested in Chennai on April 29 on terrorism charges was also targeting locations in the Maldives, terrorism expert Dr Rohan Gunaratna has told the New Indian Express (NIE).

The Tamil Nadu Police arrested Zakir Hussein, 37 years, in Chennai on suspicion of acting as an operative for Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and planning attacks on diplomatic missions including the US consulate in Chennai. The police are now investigating if Hussein was involved in bomb blasts at the Chennai Central Railway Station on May 2. The twin blasts killed one woman and injured 14 people.

Gunaratna, who heads the International Center for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR) at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, said Zakir Hussein was planning to launch attacks on locations in the Maldives, Sri Lanka and India.

Further, terror cells similar to Hussein’s are active in all three countries and pose a “severe threat” to the South Asia region, Rohan said. He declined to reveal further details, but told the NIE terror groups in the region are harder to track now as they are “becoming autonomous and developing a life of their own.”

According to NIE, Gunaratna predicts terrorists and extremists organisations will expand rapidly and become more active across South Asia due to the reduced US military presence in Afghanistan.

“It is, therefore, of critical importance for India, Lanka, and the Maldives to have a joint approach towards terrorism,” Gunaratna was quoted as saying. Considering the connections, Hussain’s arrest is “very significant” for the region, he added.

Home-made weapons

Meanwhile, the Prosecutor General’s Office has confirmed receiving a case involving a Maldivian man who produced home-made weapons.

According to Haveeru, the weapons were discovered in a police raid in September 2013 in connection to reports of a person preparing to join the Syrian civil war.

Hand guns, sniper rifles and mines were discovered during the raid, but the man accused of producing these weapons has no connections to religious extremists, Haveeru said. The PG  office declined to comment on the matter.

Social media groups have cropped up to recruit Maldivians for the civil war in Syria, while pamphlets against Alawites and Shiah Muslims have been found at local mosques. Local NGOs  led a humanitarian fund-raising campaign dubbed ‘Help Syria Through Winter’ in January and raised US$39,294 in three weeks.

Links to global terrorism

In 2007, Maldives witnessed its first terror attack when a home-made IED was detonated remotely at the Sultan Park, a popular tourist attraction in Malé. Twelve tourists were injured in the attack.

Prior to the attack, the Indian State police in 2005 arrested a Maldivian named Ibrahim Asif who tried to procure arms from Kerala to use it in the Maldives. He was suspected to be member of a UK-based Islamist group with a “dormant unit” in the Maldives.

In May 2009, Ali Jaleel, who is suspected of links with Sultan Park attack suspects, died in a suicide attack at the ISI headquarters in Lahore, Pakistan. Pakistani government suspect the Taliban to be behind the attack which left 30 people dead and 300 injured. It was later revealed that Jaleel also had connections with the Al Qaida.

Just a month before Jaleel’s attack, nine Maldivians were arrested by Pakistani security forces in the Wazaristan region for suspected involvement with militants. One of the nine was a suspect in the Sultan Park case. All nine of them were later repatriated and released by the Maldivian government.

The same year, former President Mohamed Nasheed told the CNN IBN in an interview that local religious extremists were being recruited by foreign groups particularly in Pakistan, where Ali Jaleel was also recruited.

Nasheed’s VP Dr Mohamed Waheed Hassan also expressed similar concerns, but on assuming power in February 2012, Waheed’s administration denied existence of religious extremism in the country.

In late 2010, a leaked diplomatic cable revealed US diplomats were concerned of activities of “al-Qaida associates” in the Maldives in 2008 and alleged that Maldivians participate in online recruitment forums to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan.

US State Department’s 2013 “Country Report on Terrorism” stated that Maldivian authorities believed that funds are being raised locally to support terrorism abroad.

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17 year-old girl gang raped in Male’

Local media has reported that a 17 year-old girl was gang raped today afternoon on the staircase of a house in Henveiru.

Online newspaper ‘CNM’ reported that the case was reported to police at about 2: 48 pm today afternoon.

According to the paper, the incident occurred inside a house named ‘Light Rose’ in Henveiru Ward.

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Islamic justice or state sponsored murder?

Home Minister Umar Naseer has justified the government’s decision to implement the death penalty after a sixty-year moratorium on Islamic values, while Islamic groups have said capital punishment is a crucial aspect of the Islamic Shari’ah.

But Scholar Usthaz Abdul Mueed Hassan has called on the state to abolish the death penalty, arguing Islam is first the religion of forgiveness.

Mueed, a graduate of Qatar’s Mauhadini Sanawi and Azhar University with a permit to lecture on religious issues, contends the Islamic Shari’ah does not encourage capital punishment. The death penalty comes with several qualifications in order to discourage its implementation, he argued.

The government’s new regulations says a suspect may be executed by lethal injection if the Supreme Court upholds the death sentence and if all heirs of the victim desire qisaas – an Arabic term referring to the heirs’ right to ask for a murderer’s death.

Quoting from Sayyid Sabiq’s Fiqh Sunnah, Mueed said there are four requirements which need to be fulfilled before qisaas can be carried out.

“Firstly, it has to be seen whether the victim was pure of blood [Whether he is a blasphemer, a fornicator or an infidel]. Then whether the culprit has reached puberty. Thirdly, whether the culprit was sound of mind at the time he or she committed the murder. Qisaas cannot be implemented even if he was intoxicated at the time of murder. Lastly, it has to be proven without a doubt that the culprit committed murder out of his own free will. If not, it is the person who ordered the murder and drove the culprit to commit murder who will be subjected to execution,” he explained.

The victim and the culprit must also hold similar levels of freedom and religiosity, he said.

“In taking qisaas, it is prescribed that it must be done in the manner that the crime was committed. Like the metaphor an eye for an eye. Taken in the same exact manner. How can this be done in cases of murder? How can the life of the murderer be taken in the same manner as that of the murdered? This is prescribed so as to discourage the taking of qisaas,” he said.

Further, forgiveness precedes qisaas in Islam, he argued, quoting Verse 32 of Surah Al Maida: “Because of that, We decreed upon the Children of Israel that whoever kills a soul unless for a soul or for corruption [done] in the land – it is as if he had slain mankind entirely. And whoever saves one – it is as if he had saved mankind entirely.”

Islam does not permit punishment for Hadd offenses – which include murder, theft, fornication, adultery and consumption of alcohol – to be delivered if there is any doubt in the matter, he said.

Additionally, if the executioner believes that the death sentence was wrong, he must refuse to implement it. If he carries out the execution while in doubt then he himself must face the same fate, Mueed said.

“The Prophet has also said that when seeking to implement Hadd on a person, even of the slightest reason to let it go without implementing the Hadd is detected, then do so. He then says that this is because it is far better for the person in charge – be it a judge, a president or an Imam – to err in forgiving a person than to err in sentencing a person,” he stated.

Even in Saudi Arabia – the largest 100 percent Muslim nation – the King himself intervenes in cases of murder to urge forgiveness instead of qisaas, Mueed noted.

The public voice

When I spoke to several members of the public on their views, I found those who favored the death penalty did so believing it would deter crime. In recent years, there have been spates of gang related killings, including the murder of MP Dr. Afrasheem Ali.

Waheeda Omar, a 56-year-old housewife, believed the death penalty was crucial to prevent murder.

“Let the state kill whoever is accused of murder, whether or not they have the right man. The point is, once someone is killed for the crime, other people will hesitate from committing similar crimes,” she said.

Ahmed Ubaidh, a 48-year-old taxi driver, expressed faith in the state, saying it could not go wrong in deciding on life and death.

“I don’t have an opinion on this matter. The state is the highest authority, next to the Qur’an. If both feel that death penalty must be implemented, then they must be right. Who am I to question God’s will?”

Hassan Iqbal, 32, said death must be punished with death: “They killed. Let them feel what it feels like to be at the sharp end of the blade.”

President Abdulla Yameen has also said “murder must be punished with murder.” In an interview during the 2013 presidential campaign, Yameen said he had not supported the death penalty previously, but had “a change of heart” due to “commonplace murders.”

Several members of the public, meanwhile, opposed the move, saying the Maldivian judiciary is not fit to decide on the life and death of a human being.

A 39-year-old civil servant who asked to remain anonymous, on account of “speaking about a manner that will have people accuse me of blasphemy,” stated “Islam is a religion of forgiveness. It is a corrupted version of Islam, full of political and self-interest, that promotes the idea of taking lives. In a country as small as ours, state executions will lead to more rifts, more crimes, and more hatred and unrest. I am strongly against it”.

Ali Akhtar, 28, said he “wouldn’t trust this judiciary with my property, much less my life.”

“I am not a scholar, so I will not speak in light of what the Shari’ah says. But even I know for sure that Allah would never want people to be ordered to death by a judiciary as corrupt as ours, where there is a chance that it is minority groups, and us everyday people, who are mostly unjustly sentenced to die,” he said.

Mohamed – a 25 year old who previously worked in a human rights organization – said: “Putting aside the fact that death penalty is a clear violation of Maldives’ international obligations and right to life guaranteed under the new Constitution, death penalty is clearly not a deterrent to murder. Maldives does not have the legal framework to provide the accused a fair trial.

“The judiciary is not equipped with the skill sets to examine forensic evidence put before them. Furthermore, being a small and well-connected society, the ramification of it would be huge and can have a lasting impact as the regulation puts the life of the accused in the hands of the families of victims.”

Lethal injection

The state’s decision to administer the death penalty by lethal injection has also raised controversy.

A group of medical doctors, who requested to be unnamed, said death by lethal injection is unreliable.

“There are many recorded cases where administration of lethal injection has gone wrong, leading to paralysis or worse instead of death. I would not recommend it,” one doctor stated.

“I do not think the state will, and sincerely hope they don’t, approach anyone in the medical field to administer the injection. It is strictly against our ethics; we work to save lives, not take them,” his partner added.

Dr Faisal Saeed meanwhile opined that “The specific role of health professionals in society is to heal and to alleviate suffering”.

“There is a consensus among most professional bodies that doctors and nurses involvement in executions is unethical because it contradicts the dictates of the medical profession to alleviate pain and suffering. The use of medical devices and knowledge as a method of execution distorts the life saving purpose of medicine and portrays the doctor or nurse as an executioner, which will risk to undermine public trust.”

“Execution is not the role of doctors or nurses. Although the death penalty regulations do not state who will administer the lethal injection, the state cannot ask doctors or nurses to be in a position to violate their professional ethics and values,” he concluded.

Except for the location of execution, the state has not revealed details of the procedures for administration of the lethal injection so far.

The last Maldivian to be executed by the state was Hakim Didi, who was killed by a firing squad for the crime of practising black magic in 1952.

A backward leap

Local NGOs, advocacy groups and members of the public have started to raise concern about what they term to be “a backward leap” for the Maldives.

“Given the state of the Maldivian judiciary, which is also perceived to be highly politicised and corrupt, it is most concerning that as grave a matter as life and death of humans is to be decided by it,” a recent statement by the Maldivian Democracy Network, and supported by Dhi Youth Movement and Transparency Maldives said.

Islamic blogger Aisha Hussein Rasheed has also said the death penalty can be used to silence political dissent.

“The issue is that of corruption in the justice system: police, judiciary, lawyers, etc. Look at the death sentences given recently in Egypt for example. Capital punishment can easily be used to silence political dissent or to subdue personal or business rivals,” she said.

An advocacy group – calling themselves “When The State Kills”- have launched an Aavaaz petition urging public support to convince the state to abolish the death penalty.

“The implementation of the death penalty is especially troubling given the state of the country’s criminal justice system. Even in countries with long established justice systems, innocent people have been wrongly convicted and executed,” administrators of the group told Minivan News.

“It is a well known fact that judges in the Maldives use their own discretion when handing out verdicts, without following any particular procedure or even due process. We have seen innocent people being convicted in the past, so it is likely to happen in the future. The death penalty is an irreversible punishment. It would be an inhumane error,” they said.

Over 69 percent of Maldivians believe the judiciary is among the most corrupt institution in the country, Transparency International’s global corruption barometer of 2013 has revealed. Numerous international actors, including the UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges Gabriela Knaul have released statements of concern about the judiciary’s lack of independence and failure to serve justice.

In addition to the perceived incompetency of the judiciary, the Maldives lacks legislation for witness protection, evidence or criminal procedures.

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Justice Ali Hameed’s ‘corruption’ documents destroyed in coffee spill

The Criminal Court has asked the Prosecutor General’s Office (PG) to resend all files concerning Supreme Court Justice Ali Hameed’s alleged misuse of state funds after case documents were destroyed in a coffee spill.

The PG has asked the Criminal Court to present the damaged documents three weeks ago, but the court has not done so yet, an official from the PGO told Minivan News.

The state is raising corruption charges against Ali Hameed over the illegal transfer of credit from his state-funded mobile phone in 2010.

An official from the Criminal Court told Minivan News on April 13 that the court had not decided to accept the case or not.

Cases filed by the PG office are scrutinised in the order of submission “to make sure all the paperwork is complete and that there are no missing documents,” he said. The process normally takes “two to three days,” he added.

The case against Justice Hameed – accused of abuse of authority to benefit a third party – was sent to the PG office in July 2013 by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) after investigating allegations in the 2010 audit report of the Department of Judicial Administration.

Auditors found that a Supreme Court Justice transferred MVR2,223 (US$144) from his state-funded mobile phone on different occasions during 2010.

According to the audit report, the interim Supreme Court bench on October 23, 2008 decided to provide for each justice “a post-paid line, a phone and to pay the phone bill without a set limit out of the court’s budget”.

The report also noted that between October 2008 and December 2011, Supreme Court judges paid their phone bills amounting to MVR 281,519 (US$18,257) from the state budget, despite the fact that parliament had not allocated any phone allowances to the judges. Additionally, MVR 117, 832 (US$7640) was found to have been overspent on wages and allowances to the driver of a judge’s car.

The judge is also currently subject to investigation over his alleged appearance in multiple leaked sex videos depicting him fornicating with foreign women in what appears to be a Colombo hotel room.

A further video also appears to show Hameed and a local businessman, Mohamed Saeed, discussing political influence in the judiciary.

Justice Hameed in the video reveals his political ‘hook-up’ with President Abdulla Yameen, claiming that he was one of Yameen’s “back-ups” and that his stand was “to do things the way Yameen wants”, promising to “kill off” Dhivehi Rayithunge Party (DRP) leader Ahmed Thasmeen Ali “if it comes into my hands.”

Even [Speaker of Parliament] Abdulla Shahid will know very well that my stand is to do things the way Yameen wants. That the fall of this government was brought with our participation,” he adds.

However, he also claims that he was a person who “even Yameen cannot play with” and that over time he had “shown Yameen” who he is.

After the sex tapes of Hameed surfaced in May 2013, the judicial oversight body, Judicial Services Commission (JSC), set up committees to investigate the case twice – in May and December 2013.

Both subcommittees unanimously recommended the JSC suspend Hameed pending an investigation.

However, in July 2013, the JSC disregarded the recommendation citing lack of evidence, while a JSC decision on the December subcommittee’s recommendation is still pending.

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Maldives journalism awards celebrates free press

The first Maldives Journalism Awards took place in Dharubaaruge, Malé last night (May 3). The ceremony presented “Journalist of the Year” awards to journalists working in print and radio in the Maldives.

Fazeena Ahmed, 26, of Haveeru won in the online print category, and Ahmed Naushad, Voice of Maldives, won in the radio journalism category.

Haveeru journalist Ahmed Hamdhoon censured President Abdulla Yameen’s failure to attend the ceremony, saying: “[We] feel we, journalists are not important to the government.”

The event, organized by the Maldives Media Council, selected winners based on discipline, richness of content, adherence to proper journalistic practices, quality of presentation and inclusion of photos and videos.

Winners of the Maldives Journalism Award were selected by an independent panel of judges consisting of Maldives Broadcasting Commission Chairman Ibrahim Umar Manik, former Minister of State for Information Thoyyib Mohamed, former Aafathis editors Abdulla Naeem Ibrahim, Mohamed Nazeef and Ahmed Zahir

There was an additional TV journalism category for which seven journalists applied. However, the judges said that none were selected due to lack of material.

Winner of the online journalism category Fazeena has been working at Haveeru for the past five years, and won recognition for her profile of former President Mohamed Nasheed during the presidential election of 2013, and her coverage of the Villingili children’s orphanage.

“I am very happy. Not just because I won the award, but because the Media Council has introduced such an award for the first time. This is a very important step and an encouragement for new journalists,” Fazeena told Minivan News.

She went on to identify access to information as the biggest obstacle to media freedom, and said that she had received threats because of her work.

No government officials present

In an op-ed today, Haveeru journalist Ahmed Hamdhoon expressed disappointment over President Abdulla Yameen and his ministers’ failure to attend the ceremony.

“All those working in the media are deeply saddened by President Yameen’s refusal to attend a landmark ceremony held by an independent state institution’s to recognize and encourage journalists,” wrote Hamdhoon.

Hamdhoon also criticized President Abdulla Yameen’s failure to make a statement on the World Press Freedom Day (May 3).

President’s Office Spokesperson Ibrahim Muaz Ali has said Yameen was unable to attend the ceremony because the invitation –which was delivered a week ahead of the event – came “at the last minute.”

In a statement, Muaz said the government will treat all journalists equally, and pledged to do all possible to protect media in the Maldives. He went to say that the government will enact the Right to Information Act within the period specified in the act.

The government welcomes responsible journalism, and will stop any journalism outside of acceptable borders, or attempts to create chaos or defame individuals, he added.

He recognized threats media has faced over the past two years, including the vandalism at Villa TV, the Raajje TV arson attack, and the murder attempt on Raajje TV reporter Ibrahim ‘Asward’ Waheed.

Speaking at the event last night, MMC member Mohamed Abdulla Shafeeq identified threats to journalists as a growing problem.

“Threats from public to media outlets are increasing. There have been no efforts to stop this. This is something that all journalists agree,” he said.

A landmark “Threat Analysis Report” carried out by the Maldives Broadcasting Commission last week found that 84 percent of journalists surveyed reported being threatened at least once, while five percent reported being threatened on a daily basis.

Journalists identified political parties to be the top source of threat. Gangs, religious extremists and parliament placed second while the government were rated third.

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