Day: April 11, 2015

Opposition calls mass May Day rally

The opposition has called for a mass rally on May Day in the hopes of forcing President Abdulla Yameen to negotiate over the imprisonment of political rivals.

But the president’s office today said that Yameen cannot meet the opposition’s demands, reiterating the claim that he has no power over the judiciary.

The opposition Maldivians Against Brutality coalition has been protesting daily for nine weeks over the arrest and imprisonment of ex-president Mohamed Nasheed and ex-defence minister Mohamed Nazim.

Protesters also accuse the government of targeting opposition businesses after Jumhooree Party leader and tourism tycoon Gasim Ibrahim was slapped with a US$100 million fine that may bankrupt his Villa Group.

“We will make our voices heard, we will not remain silent. President Yameen will have to come to the peace table on May 1,” the president of the religious conservative Adhaalath Party said at an opposition rally on Thursday night.

Sheikh Imran Abdulla urged Maldivians from the atolls to join protests in Malé on May 1, similar to a mass rally that was held on February 27. Over 10,000 people attended that march, but it ended unexpectedly after just two hours on Gasim’s orders.

In response to the call for talks, president’s office spokesperson Ibrahim Muaz Ali said that President Yameen had no influence over the criminal court’s sentencing of Nasheed and Nazim.

“There is no seat for the president at a table for unconstitutional demands,” Muaz said.

Nazim was found guilty of smuggling weapons and sentenced to 11 years in prison last month, while Nasheed was sentenced to 13 years in jail over the arrest of a judge during his term in office.

“We have a system of separated powers. Therefore making demands that he cannot meet is forcing him to violate the constitution. The president has very clearly stated he will not interfere in the other branches of the state,” Muaz told newspaper Haveeru.

Muaz said Imran had already held discussions with President Yameen in March shortly before the Adhaalath Party’s split from the ruling coalition. At those talks, the president made similar comments about being unable to influence state bodies, said Muaz.

However, the United Nations, Amnesty International and several countries have been critical of Nasheed’s trial and suggested it was politically motivated.

In recent weeks, police have gradually clamped down on opposition protests, first banning protests and the use of loudspeakers beyond 12 am. The opposition last week was ordered to seek prior permission for protests, although it subsequently held a demonstration on Friday that police did not appear to block.

The Elections Commission has meanwhile sought to fine the main opposition Maldivian Democratic Party and Adhaalath Party with thousands of dollars over the protests, but the parties have so far refused to pay.

Muaz claimed the protests were aimed at diverting attention from the government’s development agenda, and said Nasheed and Nazim could appeal their sentences through the courts.

“There is no single day for the president to listen to the people. Everyday is a day he listens to those concerns,” he said.

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Ex-defence minister jailed for 10 years on terrorism charges

Former defence minister Tholhath Ibrahim Kaleyfaanu was found guilty of terrorism and sentenced to 10 years in jail last night over the military detention of a judge while ex-president Mohamed Nasheed was in office.

Nasheed is currently serving a 13-year jail sentence over the same incident, in which criminal court chief judge Abdulla Mohamed was held for three weeks in January 2012.

Ex-colonel Mohamed Ziyad, one of the five accused in the case, was meanwhile acquitted last night.

The court said the prosecution’s evidence, witness testimony and Tholhath’s statements in court were sufficient to prove the former minister’s involvement.

However, the three-judge panel presiding over both cases ruled that Ziyad followed orders from his superiors, did not have any intention of unlawfully arresting the judge, and was not in a position to issue commands.

Several senior military officers had meanwhile said Tholhath had vowed to take responsibility for the judge’s 22-day detention on Girifushi island even if he were to be jailed for 40 years.

The judges also noted that Tholhath defied court orders demanding Judge Abdulla’s immediate release.

The verdicts were delivered last night following repeated cancellations after the hearings were concluded last month.

At a previous hearing, Tholhath said Nasheed had ordered the arrest of the judge.

The operation ‘Liberty Shield’ was initiated by Nasheed and carried out by then-Malé Area Commander Brigadier General Ibrahim Mohamed Didi, currently an opposition Maldivian Democratic Party MP for mid-Hithadhoo constituency, he said.

During the trial, state prosecutors said soldiers involved in the operation were not being charged as accomplices because senior officers of the military “used the institution as a veil to commit this atrocity”.

On Wednesday night, the criminal court acquitted Defence Minister Moosa Ali Jaleel of terrorism charges related to the judge’s arrest. The retired major general was chief of defence forces at the time, but maintained he had no role in the operation.

Of the five defendants charged with the “abduction” or “enforced disappearance” of the judge, only MP Didi’s verdict is still pending.

Didi’s trial did not progress beyond a few hearings as he had to be flown abroad for medical treatment half-way through the trial. He is yet to return to the country.

Judge Abdulla’s arrest sparked 22 nights of violent anti-government protests, culminating in a police and army mutiny on February 7, 2012. Nasheed resigned on the same day, but later said it was in order to avoid bloodshed and was in effect a forced resignation.

In January 2013, Tholhath told parliament’s government oversight committee that the events of February 7 was not a coup d’etat, after previously claiming Nasheed’s life was in danger and that the former president had no choice but to resign.

During the 2013 presidential campaign, Tholhath campaigned for Jumhooree Party Leader Gasim Ibrahim and later backed eventual winner Abdulla Yameen.

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Comment: ‘It’s not political’

Mohamed Nasheed, opposition leader and former President, was jailed for 13 years on charges of terrorism for an act that does not fit into any of the over 300 definitions of terrorism that currently exist across the world. One of the five co-defendants in the case, Moosa Jaleel, the current Defence Minister and Nasheed’s Chief of Staff at the time of the said act of ‘terrorism’, was cleared of the same charge yesterday. For Nasheed, the conviction came because he could not prove he was innocent. For Jaleel, the acquittal came because the prosecution could not prove he was guilty. Neither of the verdicts, according to the government, was political.

Rtd Col Mohamed Nazim, Defence Minister until charged with conspiracy to overthrow the government in February 2015, was found guilty of a lesser charge of smuggling weapons into the country. The evidence against Nazim could not have been any more frivolous or, frankly, any more ludicrous. Allegedly, he was planning to shoot and kill Yameen, his right-hand man Tourism Minister Ahmed Adeeb, and a few others in the current government. He laid out detailed plans of how to do it and supposedly saved them on a pen-drive. More sophisticated event planning can be found in a primary school exercise book. Nazim’s legal team pointed 12 gaping holes in the evidence against him. Yet, he was pronounced guilty and jailed for 11 years. Nothing political about it, maintained the government.

Next came Mohamed Nazim, MP for Dhiggaru area, and, until Ahmed Adeeb weighed into the relationship, Yameen’s closest political ally and partner in all businesses above and below board. Yameen and Nazim went way back, even founded a political party together – People’s Alliance – which later merged with Gayoom’s PPM. Adeeb’s presence somehow muddied the waters between the friends and, before Nazim could say ‘jangiya’, he had been sentenced to 25 years (life) in prison for corruption worth 1.4 million Rufiyaa. The fraud was committed when Nazim was working in the Atolls Ministry back in 2004. When things were good between Yameen and Nazim, the same courts had said about the same allegations that ‘Nazim had no charges to answer.’ But now, out of favour with Yameen, not only were the charges worth answering, they were also worth life imprisonment. Meanwhile Adeeb, who is basking in the sunshine of Yameen’s approval, can happily ignore allegations of corruption worth millions of US dollars. Not only that, the Auditor General who dared expose the allegations, was removed from his positionand a more ‘friendly’ figure put in his place so Adeeb does not have to put up with listening to such ‘drivel’ against him. On top of it all, news came yesterday that theTourism Ministry is to have ‘extended powers’. ‘It’s not political’, says the government.

Meanwhile, life keeps getting harder to live on the islands of Maldives. Taxes have gone up, along with living expenses. Salaries, however, remain as low as ever. While each tourist who arrives in the Maldives – and according to Tourism Ministry figures there were over a 100,000 in February alone – spends an average US$350 a day, the average monthly salary of a civil servant remains below that amount. While the price of fuel has gone down dramatically across the world, electricity bills have become impossible for people to pay. Not only are the bills remaining as high as ever, the government is also cutting subsidies which made it possible for people to pay them in the first place. ‘Don’t make this political’, says the government.

Amidst all this came the news that the President’s Office has given each of the five Supreme Court judges, along with the president of the Anti-Corruption Commission, newly built apartments in Male’ at a discounted rate. Land is the most precious commodity in the Maldives, especially in and around Male’. Decades of centralisation has meant all essential services such as healthcare and education are only available in the capital city with even a modicum of satisfaction. People are desperate for housing in the area – the apartments in Male’ are meant as some sort of a solution for this problem. Yet, instead of the desperate, they are given to the already flush. ‘It’s to protect their integrity’, said Adeeb, speaking for the President’s Office. ‘It’s not political.’

While coping with the hardships of surviving in the messed up economy, half the country is out on the streets attempting to save, through peaceful civil resistance, the last remaining vestiges of democracy. The government has responded by describing civil and political rights enshrined in the 2008 democratic Constitution as ‘loopholes’ through which people are abusing the ruling party. Laws will be made to close them holes, it has said. So the authorities first moved to ban protesting in certain areas, then at certain times, then at certain decibels and, most recently, without prior permission of the police.

The police have taken into custody close to 200 people in less than a month, and the courts have taken to imposing unconstitutional conditions on their release, demanding that they don’t protest for days, weeks or even months, if they want to remain free citizens. Those who defy the bans are locked up, deprived of basic rights and even abused psychologically and physically. Opposition parliamentarians are often the victims. Most recently, MP Ahmed Mahloof defied the conditional ban on protests only to see his wife being physically, and she alleges sexually, abused by a group of policemen as he was hauled away to detention without charge for an undefined length of time. ‘Don’t make this political’, says the government. ‘It’s rule of law’.

To prove that ‘it’s not political’, the government continues to behave as if none of these events are taking place. It has announced plans to prettify Male’ with flowers all over the city; the Clock Roundabout is to get a new clock; one part of the land-sparse Male’ is to be turned into a show area of ‘what it used to be like’; buildings are to be painted; and a dozen or so Maldivians are to sky-dive into the national stadium in a grandiose gesture. Meanwhile, a travelling band of PPM activists are to tour the country setting off fireworks on various islands, when they are not travelling to award air-conditioners and other bribes ahead of by-election votes, that is.

Of course, none of this is political. These are not attempts to pretend that everything is fine. These are not attempts to show that only a few dozen mad people are out protesting, trying to upset the smooth running of a democratically elected, benevolent government which is only trying to do best by its people.

Of course not. All these activities are to celebrate 50 years of independence. Independence? Where is the freedom? you ask. Oh, don’t get political.

This article first appeared on Dhivehisitee.com. Republished with permission. 

Azra Naseem is a former journalist who now works as a Research fellow in Dublin City University. 

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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Government to invite bids for Thilafushi waste processing

The government says it will invite bids next month to separate waste on the “rubbish island” of Thilafushi in the latest attempt to solve the Maldives’ biggest environmental blight.

Tourism minister Ahmed Adeeb, who heads the Economic Council, said he hoped waste separation services would be in place by the end of the year, while a second phase of the project will involve green energy generation from the waste.

“The dumping site will be converted to an environmentally friendly incineration site,” he said.

The changes are to be financed by a new US $6-per-tourist “green tax” introduced in this year’s budget, Adeeb said.

The plan is the latest in a series of attempts to take control of the waste problem at Thilafushi, where garbage from the capital, Male’, and from many resorts is sent.

More than 200,000 tons of industrial and domestic waste were sent to Thilafushi in 2013, the most recent year for which statistics are available, according to government figures.

While some of the waste is sorted and sent to India, most is simply used as landfill or burned. Campaign groups have highlighted the risks to workers from toxic fumes and the contamination of surrounding lagoons by floating garbage.

The former Maldivian Democratic Party-led government had signed a contract with India-based Tatva Global Renewable Energy in 2011 to provide waste management services in and around Male, including establishing a system to generate power from recycling waste.

However, the current government of President Abdulla Yameen cancelled that deal late last year, having previously sought to renegotiate it on “more mutually beneficial” terms.

Environmentalists have questioned whether the political will exists to transform Thilafushi.

“So far, they’ve been trying for 20 years and it’s only getting worse,” said Maeed Zahir, founder of the environmental NGO Ecocare.

The government has also signed a memorandum of understanding with the Emirati company Dubai Ports World for development of a new commercial port at Thilafushi, to be built within two years.

 

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