Day: October 14, 2014

Case of unauthorised imam sent to prosecutor general

Police are reported to have concluded investigations into an imam accused of giving unauthorised sermons at Malé’s Dharumavantha Mosque.

Sun Online reports that the case has been sent to the Prosecutor General’s Office after a 34-year-old man was taken into custody for leading an independent prayer congregation on September 30.

He stands charged of of “attempting to incite religious strife and discord,” said police, and leading prayers without authorisation from the Islamic ministry in violation of the Protection of Religious Unity Act of 1994 and regulations under the law.

Home Minster Umar Naseer has pledged to stop the congregation meeting at the mosque. The gatherings, deemed “extremist” by the Islamic Minister, have continued even after being temporarily shut down in February by Malé City Council.

Reports that police had arrested worshippers at the mosque earlier this month were denied by police, however, who accused media outlets of attempting to mislead the public.

In April, President Abdulla Yameen ratified amendments to the Religious Unity Act – which came into force mid-July – outlawing independent or unauthorised prayer congregations. The amendments will also bring all mosques under the central administration of the Islamic ministry from November 1.

The penalty for violations of either the law or the regulations is a jail sentence of between two to five years.

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Majlis session cancelled due to no work, EC nominees to be considered

Tomorrow’s sitting of the People’s Majlis has been cancelled as no tasks are currently pending for the full house.

Deputy Speaker ‘Reeko’ Moosa Manik is reported to have urged Majlis committees to expedite their work. Today’s sitting was just the second since MPs returned from recess at the start of the week.

During today’s session the names of two nominees to the vacant seats on the Elections Commission (EC) were sent to the independent institutions committee for consideration.

Asim Abdul Sattar and Aishath Hatheef have been nominated to the five member commission by President Abdulla Yameen.

The commission was reduced to 4 members after the resignation of Ibrahim ‘Ogaru’ Waheed on health grounds last year, before President Fuwad Thowfeek and Vice President Ahmed Fayaz were removed by the Supreme Court in March.

Ismail Habeeb Abdul Raheem was subsequently approved by the Majlis in order to fulfil the EC’s required quorum of three members.

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Democratic decline in the Maldives – will the world wake up?: Open Democracy

“The Maldives should be seen as a microcosm of many aspects of struggles taking place throughout the world: long-standing elites exert a retrograde influence on rights, democracy and social freedoms, and by doing so they help themselves to profit from corruption, cronyism, and the enervation or breakdown of democratic institutions,” writes Matt Mullberry for Open Democracy.

“Accordingly, civil resistance becomes the necessary mechanism for people to try to save democratic practices and individual rights.

This same dynamic played out in South Africa during the long struggle against apartheid, in the Philippines in the 1980s, and during the Arab Spring. Within all these struggles, the concern and action of other governments, especially those in the democratic world, had a serious impact.

Here the stakes are just as large, albeit in a remote island nation. The international community has the opportunity to defend a set of democratic ideals to which it has long paid lip service, at a very low cost, and by doing so affect the lives and fortunes of a nation’s people.

The question right now is simple:  Will international actors who believe in genuine democracy be consistent in defending it, regardless of the stakes and the context?”

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