Two former members of interim Elections Commission face corruption charges

The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has forwarded corruption cases against two former members and two senior officials of the Elections Commission (EC) to the Prosecutor General’s Office (PGO) for purchasing over 50 laptops without a public tender or bidding process.

The officials facing corruption charges are former commission members Ahmed ‘Saabe’ Shahid and Mohamed Mahir along with then-Director General Shaukath Ibrahim and Deputy Director Ahmed Naeem.

An ACC investigation into the allegedly fraudulent transactions found that the EC bought 57 NEC Versa S3300 notebook computers on four different occasions from the same company ahead of the 2008 presidential elections.

The 57 laptops were purhcased in the space of 21 days at a total cost of Rf 621,015 (S$40,000).

A press statement issued by the ACC yesterday revealed that the first 20 laptops were purchased after a public announcement on September 16, 2008, but an additional 37 laptops were purchased before October 15 – two weeks before the second round run-off – without an invitation for bids.

The ACC found from examining “goods delivery” notes that the EC received the laptops before the dates specified in the agreements, which were signed by then-Deputy Director Ahmed Naeem.

The ACC noted that the purchases were made in violation of regulations on procurement of items from a single party as well as a stipulation for public tenders and evaluation by a committee for purchases above Rf25,000.

While the EC did not form a committee to evaluate bids and award points for proposals in accordance with the regulations, the ACC also found the company that provided the laptops did not submit information in writing as required by the procurement regulations.

The ACC asked the PGO on November 17 to charge former Deputy Director Ahmed Naeem under the Anti-Corruption Act for abuse of authority for undue financial gain for a third party and to prosecute former members of the interim commission, Mohamed Mahir and Ahmed ‘Saabe’ Shahid, on similar corruption charges for authorising the illegal purchases.

Ahmed Shahid is a senior member of the ruling Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) and husband of Galolhu North MP Eva Abdulla.

Both Mahir and Saabe had authorised the purchases by approving quotations provided by the company. The company was not named in the ACC press statement.

The ACC also requested the PG to prosecute then-Director General Shaukath Ibrahim to recover the cost of five laptops (Rf54,475) that were lost and not entered into the stock inventory. The investigators found that Shaukath as head of operations was responsible for the loss.

Likes(0)Dislikes(0)

Intolerance growing in the Maldives: Asia Times

The rising tide of religious intolerance in the Maldives is threatening the country’s young democracy, writes Sudha Ramachandran for the Asia Times.

Monuments donated by Pakistan and Sri Lanka were vandalised last week as they were seen to be “idolatrous” and “irreligious”.

Member-countries of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) donated monuments to mark the just-concluded 17th summit of the regional grouping that the Maldives hosted.

The monument gifted by Pakistan consisted of an image of its founder, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, and also featured figures, some of them drawn from seals belonging to the ancient Indus Valley Civilization. Historians have argued that these figures of animals and human beings point to early religion. The Sri Lankan monument was of a lion, the country’s national symbol.

On the eve of the unveiling of the Pakistan monument, a mob reportedly led by the opposition Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM), the party of former president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, toppled the bust of Jinnah. A day later, the monument was set ablaze and the bust stolen. The Sri Lankan monument was found doused in oil with the face of the lion cut off.

Sources in the Maldivian government told Asia Times Online that the vandalisation was driven by political motivations rather than religious beliefs. “This is the opposition’s way of damping the success of the SAARC summit,” a member of the ruling Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) said.

The PPM has hailed the vandals as “national heroes” and promised to “do everything” it can to secure the release of the two men arrested over the incidents.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Islamic Affairs has ordered the government to remove the monuments as they “breach the nation’s law and religion”. Islamic Affairs Minister Abdul Majeed Abdul Bari told the local media that the Pakistan monument was “illegal” as it “represented objects of worship of other religions”.

Adhaalath Party president Sheikh Imran Abdulla told Minivan News that the monument “should not be kept on Maldivian soil for a single day” as “it conflicts with the constitution of the Maldives, the Religious Unity Act of 1994 and the regulations under the Act” as it depicted “objects of worship” that “denied the oneness of God”.

Sunni Islam was declared the official state religion of the Maldives under the 1997 constitution. This was retained in the 2008 constitution. Article 9-d says that “a non-Muslim may not become a citizen of the Maldives”. While the constitution allows non-Muslim foreigners to practice their religion privately, they are forbidden from propagating or encouraging Maldivians to practice any religion other than Islam.

The island nation in the Indian Ocean is formed by a double chain of 26 atolls has a population of about 314,000. It is the smallest Asian country in both population and land area. With an average ground level of 1.5 meters (4 foot 11 inches) above sea level, it is the planet’s lowest country.

Although religion plays an important role in the daily lives of Maldivians, the kind of Islam practiced here has never been puritanical or rigid and it is suffused with local cultural practices. Faith in Islam has co-existed with belief in spirits and djinns. Traditionally, Maldivian women did not veil their faces or even cover their heads and men did not grow beards. That is now changing with a puritanical version of Islam taking root.

Religious conservatism has grown dramatically in recent years, as has intolerance. A small but vocal group of religious radicals espousing Wahhabi or Salafi Islam has campaigned for inclusion of sharia law punishments like flogging and amputation in the penal code, used intimidation to force women to veil themselves and declared listening to music as haram (forbidden).

Maldivians who are atheist, agnostic or profess the milder Sufi Islam have been hounded by radicals. In May last year, 37-year-old Mohamed Nazim, who professed in public to be non-Muslim, was threatened by the Islamic Foundation of the Maldives, a non-governmental organisation.

Three days later, he went on television and asked for forgiveness. Two months later, 25-year-old Ismail Mohamed Didi, who admitted to being an atheist and had sought political asylum abroad, was found hanging at his workplace.

Some blame the recent spurt in religious radicalism on the country’s nascent democracy. A Maldivian political analyst who Asia Times Online spoke to in 2009 pointed out that “unlike Gayoom, who jailed people like [controversial religious preacher] Sheikh Fareed for their views, under the new democratic government extremists are able to advocate their version of Islam without fear of being arrested and detained.”

Others blame what they describe as President Mohamed Nasheed’s “appeasement of religious elements”. Indeed, not only did Nasheed create a Ministry of Islamic Affairs but he also put it in under the control of the Adhaalath Party, a party of religious conservatives.

Although Adhaalath parted ways with the ruling MDP in September, Nasheed has retained Bari, who is a member of Adhaalath, as his minister of Islamic affairs.

Nasheed’s reluctance to take on religious radicals has eroded his support among young Maldivians who voted for him not only because they wanted to see the end of four decades of Gayoom’s authoritarian rule but also because they expected him to put in place real freedom, including the right to religious freedom. Their hopes seem to have been dashed by the government’s flirting with the fundamentalists.

Full story

Likes(0)Dislikes(0)

Q&A: Richard Berge, Producer of “The Island President”

Richard Berge is a San Francisco -based film producer, writer and director with numerous credits in documentary film. Credits include “The Rape of Europa” which was nominated for an Emmy award and Documentary Screen Play award by the Writers Guild of America, and won the Audience Choice Award at the RiverRun International Film Festival. He is currently teaching at Berkley Journalism School.

Berge co-produced “The Island President” with Bonni Cohen and director Jon Shenk.

Eleanor Johnstone: How did you obtain permission to film?

Richard Berge: We contacted the press office in early 2009, after reading about Nasheed in the New York Times and different publications that were following him, and asked if they would be interested in having a film shot here about the President’s first year in office. We were hoping that it would lead to a natural climax at Copenhagen. At first, the press office was intrigued but said they couldn’t make a decision until they met us. So we took a risk and flew out here with the sound guy and thought we would maybe just check the place out. But we met with the President and five minutes later he said, “It sounds pretty interesting, I guess I’ll just have to trust you guys.” And next thing we knew, we were filming him on his trip to England to speak to Parliament.

EJ: It sounds like you had an interest in the environmental issue from the beginning. Did the young democracy aspect fall into place as you went?

RB: We always look for these story arcs that will make for an interesting frame. The Copenhagen thing a couple years ago was pretty hyped – that’s part of the reason why it was seen not to be a success. So we wanted to see how it would play out. And it turned out that the President became instrumental in that.

The film was kind of a one-two punch, in a way. In retrospect, the whole democracy thing and 2008 election seems like a precursor to the Arab Spring of earlier this year. It turned out we were there at the right time to follow this. So this transition to democracy after a 30 year rule by the former leader was definitely something that intrigued us. And the human rights issue, and spreading democracy in this part of the world was something that was interesting.

But when upon his election President Nasheed announced he would try to find a new homeland, we thought, “Wow, what a bold statement. Not sure that’s the wisest thing to say.” I think the government backpedaled a little after that, but it was intriguing. Here was a guy who clearly was going to speak his mind, and who was going to make a place for this small country on a large stage. So we saw this democracy-human rights angle in combination with this climate change issue a way to humanise the climate issue. You know, it’s such an abstract, intangible thing. And here’s this country that offers a way for people to understand what it means.

EJ: You said the President was quick to accept your proposal. How did he react to your close following and filming?

RB: I think he thought it was going to be a ’60 Minutes’ type piece. As in, we would interview him and then get some shots of him around the city, doing his thing, and then we would go away. I think he didn’t understand what we wanted.

You know, he walks from his house to the President’s Office. So we would go over in the morning and hang out outside the door, and then when he would walk to the office we would try and talk to him and say, “Mr President, this is what we’re trying to do, we need to be in your meetings.” We sort of slowly explained to him that what we were trying to do was not a news story, but a Victorian novel with one character we were following who was trying to overcome obstacles that would lead to a climax of some kind.

The access issue was a constant thing. But at the same time, I don’t think there is any other country that would have let us do what we did. It’s only because it’s a small country with a confident leader who was committed to being transparent. But even then, we were struggling all the way through. And not just because of him. Going to the UN? They don’t like cameras in there. Going to the World Bank, going to Copenhagen, it was tough.

EJ: Did the President or his administration back you up?

RB: To a point. They would allows us in there, but they were there to do business and if we were disrupting that business they weren’t going to let us stay in. They didn’t want us to interfere with their primary goals. Often we had to make the case that our presence wouldn’t interfere. The President wasn’t going to make it for us, and we had to make it to his counterparts, and his cabinet. He may have made the case behind the scenes, I don’t know. But I didn’t hear him say it to anyone.

EJ: Was there any controversial footage that had to be edited out, that either your team or the government said couldn’t be shown to the public?

RB: You have to understand that we shot about 200 hours of footage to make a 100 minute film. The President did not see any of that footage before he watched the film at the Toronto Film Festival. So that tells you a lot about how transparent he is. We didn’t take anything out. There was nobody saying “you can’t have this-or-that in the film.” So it’s pretty remarkable.

I can’t think of anything off hand that was controversial that’s not in there.

EJ: Why were you interested in following Nasheed?

RB: From what we had read in newspaper accounts he seemed like this really inspiring, motivated true believer in democracy, willing to put his own life and family on the line. And he seemed to speak truthfully from his heart and mind. He seemed like a leader that we wish our president [Barack Obama] would be more like. You may not agree with him, but he tells you what he believes. And so just for that reason he seemed very charismatic and inspiring, but also a rigorous thinker. When we were with him privately he was very down to earth, very funny, joked in the elevator, teased us. He just seemed like a very appealing person.

EJ: If he hadn’t had that appeal, would the movie have been as successful as it currently is? Would it have been done at all?

RB: Making these sorts of movies takes a lot of effort. Especially fund raising – I can’t emphasise how much work it takes to raise the money for these kind of things. We got seed money from ITVS, an affiliate of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, to get going. But then we had to go to charitable foundations to get money, and it was touch and go the whole time. If Nasheed hadn’t been charismatic, if we couldn’t see that there would be something interesting happening, we wouldn’t have invested the time and energy in the project. But he seemed like the guy who was going to put a face on climate change. And I think we made the right decision.

EJ: As you may know, there has been some political reactions to the film in the Maldives. The opposition party has been terming it a propagandist film for the President’s benefit at the cost of domestic issues. What kind of impact do you think the film could have domestically?

RB: It’s about marketing Nasheed – and it’s a movie he never saw? Imagine a PR firm or advertising firm that would put something out that the subject had never seen before it went to public. It doesn’t make sense, right?

From what I know, I can imagine the opposition is not going to like it. I don’t know how badly they’re not going to like it. But I hope they can see it as a portrait of the country. I mean, there’s a man who’s a main character, but every story has characters. It’s a lot about the Maldivian people and the beauty of the country. In most of the places we’ve shown it, such as the United States, a lot of the audience has never heard about the Maldives. They don’t know where it is.

The movie has put the Maldives on the map for those few audiences who have seen it so far. People have come up to us saying, “That’s a place where I want to go now. It looks like a beautiful place, with interesting people to meet.” So from a cultural level, and maybe from an economic and tourism level, I can see a benefit. Here’s a movie that’s going to show for the first time in theaters across the States – we just signed a deal on Friday – and this is going to released theatrically in Dhivehi with English subtitles. I mean, that’s a good thing for the Maldives.

EJ: Did you get much opposition to the film?

RB: People have been very supportive. The only pushback is that foundations that give money for this kind fo thing don’t hav ea lot of money to give, and they don’t like to give it to films. They like to give it to direct programs, active on the ground. So it’s a really hard sell. That’s why I chuckle when you say this is being seen as propaganda. We wouldn’t have spent as many months as we did trying to raise money for this if it was going to be propaganda. It’s just too hard to do, there are easier ways to make a living, you know? We did this because it is a passionate story to tell.

EJ: How many people do you expect will see the film, in the Maldives and world wide?

RB: Eventually, everbody in the Maldives can see it. We’re showing it briefly now because we want to give that opportunity, but soon I’m sure it’ll be on television here and available on DVD. And in the States, when it shows on television I’m sure it’ll be seen by millions of people in the States at least, but we’re also going to broadcast in European countries, Australia, Japan hopefully, India, so this could have a very potent impact on the climate discussion.

We’re hoping the timing will be good in the States especially. Obama just delayed the decision on the XL pipeline, and so that signals to a lot of people that the climate might become an issue in the election this coming year. And I also like the fact that we have this charismatic leader in a film that will be shown in the States. Maybe people, these Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party people will say, “Why can’t we have somebody like this guy?”

EJ: So you’re saying the film could promote not a person but a type of leader.

RB: A type of leader around the world! I mean obviously we can’t have Mohamed Nasheed as our president, but maybe he can inspire other people to have the openness, transparency and honesty in discussing problems.

EJ: You mentioned that the film could affect elections on the environmental platform. How effective will the film be for the environmental campaign in general?

RB: I don’t know how it will affect elections here, but we went into this hoping that we could have in impact on the discussion of climate change in the United States. We got money from the Ford Foundation, from the MacArthur Foundation, from Sundance Institute, and what we were saying is, Al Gore’s film was great. It put climate change on the map for people. But it still left the issue an abstract, intangible thing. We knew it was an impending catastrophe in the future, possibly. But people still couldn’t relate to it on a personal level. So we said “We need to set out a movie somehow that makes this, brings this home for people in a human way, in a way people can relate to in a story. And I think we found a person that can carry that story.”

EJ: You’ve worked on a number of films in different areas of the world. How do you maintain a relationship to the place and the issue post-production, and post-release? Where does the Maldives fall in your future?

RB: Well, I wish it was closer to home. This was a life changing experience. To be able to embed ourselves with a president and his government, to see how these leaders make decisions and how they try to have an impact, this tiny country, how they try to have some kind of influence in the world–it’s fascinating. Being able to travel with them to England, to Copenhagen, to India, and see how they relate to those leaders, I’ve never done that before. And I feel like that was a real privilege.

I brought my wife and daughter on this trip because I used to go home from the shoots full of passion, and I wanted them to see what I was so passionate about. So hopefully, we can figure out a way to keep in touch with our friends here.

EJ: Has the work here impacted any professional plans you have for the future?

RB: I don’t know, part of the plan for “The Island President” isn’t just to put it on television. We’re going to have an outreach program that will educate people on panels and at schools, and use this a way to get people thinking more and more about climate change. Not just as it affects the Maldives but as it affects their communities in the United States and other places, and how they can start acting locally.

“The Island President” premiered at the Telluride Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival, where it received the People’s Choice award. The film will premier locally this week at Dharubaaruge at 20:00 on Wednesday evening. Tickets have been sold out.

Another screening will be held at Athena Cinema at 20:30 on Thursday evening. As of Monday evening, only four tickets remained.

Likes(1)Dislikes(0)

Adhaalath, PPM accuses government of influencing Fuvahmulah by-election

The Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) and religious conservative Adhaalath Party has accused senior government officials of illegally influencing the by-election held in Fuvamulah last Saturday for a vacant atoll council seat.

In a statement yesterday, Adhaalath Party said it had received information that the ruling Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) carried out a number of activities to influence voting.

Transport Minister Adhil Saleem, Tourism Minister Dr Mariyam Zulfa and Education Minister Shifa Mohamed were in Fuvahmulah on the day of the vote, Adhaalath noted, alleging that the ministers summoned Fuvamulah managers and staff at the State Trading Organization (STO) Fuvamulah branch as well as the island’s hospital and “threatened” and ordered them to vote for MDP candidate.

Education Minister Shifa phoned heads of Fuvamulah schools and asked them to vote for the MDP candidate, Adhaalath claimed.

“Fuvamulah islanders in Male’ were carried on flights to the Fuvamulah for the vote,” Adhaalath said in the statement. “When the ministers went near the area where the ballot boxes were kept to influence the election, islanders sent them away.”

PPM Media Coordinator and Vili-Maafanu MP Ahmed Nihan told Minivan News today that three cabinet ministers and senior officials of the State Trading Organisation (STO) were actively campaigning and “going door to door” on the day of the by-election.

“PPM calls on the Elections Commission (EC) to investigate the government’s intimidation of voters and violation of democratic principles,” he said.

Senior officials of STO told Fuvahmulah residents that work on the island’s airport could stop if they did not elect an MDP councillor, Nihan claimed.

Such actions by senior government officials cast doubt on the fairness of the by-election, Nihan argued.

Nihan said the EC should have a “better probing mechanism” to answer complaints of undue influence over elections, adding that an official should have been monitoring the situation on the ground.

Tourism Minister Dr Maryam Zulfa however dismissed the allegations today and said that the purpose of the minister’s visit was to brief the islanders and councillors about the government projects planned and ongoing in Fuvamulah.

“We did not take part in any campaign activities and the only persons we met were the island councilors and atoll councilors and we had a meeting open for all the people of Fuvamulah,” she said. “There are so many investments made in Fuvamulah and we were advised not to let it die there.”

PPM member Abdulla Mohamed Didi – who ran as an Independent as PPM had not completed the registration process – won Saturday’s by-election for the mid-Fuvahmulah atoll council seat with 861 votes (52 percent) to the 750 votes (46 percent) for the MDP candidate, Mohamed Abdulla Didi.

The seat had previously been held by MDP councillor Hassan Saeed, who was removed from the post after the Supreme Court ruled in October that his candidacy should have been disqualified over a decreed debt.

Likes(0)Dislikes(0)

UN Human Rights Commissioner to visit Maldives

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay arrives in the Maldives today for the start of a week-long visit to Asia.

Pillay will spend several days in the Maldives during which time she will meet President Mohamed Nasheed, senior ministers, political party leaders, the judiciary, National Human Rights Comission and civil society organisations. A key item on the agenda is likely to be Nasheed’s interest in establishing a human rights mechanism in SAARC.

The visit is the first such visit to the Maldives by a UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Likes(0)Dislikes(0)

Maldives a case study of new Chinese consumerism: GTIN

Analysts now know that the best place to learn about Chinese ultra-rich consumers is not the mainland, writes Global Travel Industry News.

Rather the Maldives, double-chain of islands near the equator, proves to be the perfect place to launch a case study of Chinese consumerism. In 2010, more than 118,000 Chinese visited the country: a 109 percent increase from the year before, making the Chinese the number-one inbound market of the Maldives. Tourists here have helped form the new profile of Chinese consumers.

More Chinese are traveling overseas from smaller cities, places where growing middle classes are accumulating more wealth and do not face the financial pinch of rising housing prices and inflation felt by similar demographics in cities like Beijing and Shanghai, which, according to Vincent Liu, a partner at BCG in Hong Kong, will eventually impact the spending power of travelers from first-tier cities.

“Many of them are richer than those from major cities,” says Roger Wang, head of Lukintl, a Beijing-based tour company that has taken thousands of Chinese to America since it was founded in 1996. “The tourists from the main cities are mostly from the middle class, while tourists from smaller cities are millionaires or government officials. Usually they have strong spending power.”

Read more

Likes(0)Dislikes(0)

Blog crack-down “is just the beginning”, warns censored blogger

The website of controversial Maldivian blogger Ismail ‘Hilath’ Rasheed has been shut down by Communications Authority of the Maldives (CAM) on the order of the Ministry of Islamic Affairs. The Ministry made the request on the grounds that the site contained anti-Islamic material, a CAM statement read.

CAM Director Abdulla Nafeeg Pasha told Minivan News the Islamic Ministry has the power to regulate website content.

Pasha did not wish to comment on the procedures for closing down a website, but said “if the ministry tells us to shut it down, that’s what we do. We do not make the decision.”

Once closed, Pasha explained, a website can only be re-opened by order of the court.

Islamic Minister Abdul Majeed Abdul Bari had not returned calls at time of press, and Permanent Secretary of the Ministry Mohamed Didi had not responded to enquiries.

In a statement issued today Hilath defended his blog as an expression of his Sufi Muslim identity.

“I am a Sufi Muslim and there is nothing on my website that contradicts Sufi Islam. I suspect my website was reported by intolerant Sunni Muslims and Wahhabis,” he claimed.

Under the Maldivian constitution every Maldivian is a Sunni Muslim. The constitution also provides for freedom of expression, with Article 27 reading “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought and the freedom to communicate opinions and expression in a manner that is not contrary to any tenet of Islam.”

New regulations published by the government in September, enforcing the 1994 Religious Unity Act, bans the media from producing or publicising programs, talking about or disseminating audio “that humiliates Allah or his prophets or the holy Quran or the Sunnah of the Prophet (Mohamed) or the Islamic faith.”

“This also includes the broadcasting of material (on other religions) produced by others and recording of such programs by the local broadcaster, and broadcasting such material by the unilateral decision of the local broadcaster,” the regulations stipulate. Under the Act, the penalty for violation is 2-5 years imprisonment.

Hilath claimed he was being censored for expressing his version of Islam, and called for more freedom of interpretation within the faith.

“I call upon all concerned to amend the clause in the constitution which requires all Maldivians to be Sunni Muslims only,” his statement read.

“‘Unto you your religion and unto me my religion,’ and ‘There is no compulsion in religion’,” he said, quoting Qur’an 109:6 and 2:256.

Hilath believes the block of his website has a political edge. “If Sunni Muslims are the conservatives, then the Sufi Muslims are the liberals,” he told Minivan News. “I think this is a conservative attack on the site. They think if you’re not a Sunni, you’re an unbeliever.”

Hilath said he would approach the issue from its constitutional roots. “If I want to unlock my blog I will have to go to court, where they will say I’m an unbeliever which is illegal. So I will have fight the larger issue of the constitution,” he said.

The label of ‘unbeliever’ was tantamount to ‘enemy of the state’, he said, adding that bloggers such as himself were afraid of the consequences of being labelled as such. Hilath is one of only a few Maldivian bloggers who write under their own names.

In January 2009 the Islamic Ministry shut down several blogs for allegedly publishing anti-Islamic material. The action closely followed then-newly elected President Mohamed Nasheed’s statement that the Maldives would be a haven of free expression.

Hilath said he was ashamed of the government’s maintenance of its original declaration for a liberal democracy. “I know the President said this was a liberal democracy, but I am ashamed that the Islamic Ministry has assumed so much power,” he said. “I call upon the president to address this issue.”

A 2009 review endorsed by UNESCO’s International Programme for the Development of Communication defined freedom of expression in the digital age as dependent on “neutral” networks “in the sense that the flow of content should not be influenced by financial, cultural or political reasons.”

“In particular, in the case of filtering, the origin of filtering lists and the underlying criteria and processes should be publicly available,” read the report.

The report made three recommendations for the Maldives:

1) To stop blocking websites as was done in March 2009;

2) If blocking is necessary, it should only be pursued following a favorable court decision;

3) To foster open discussions on internet regulation among citizens, government members, NGOs and international parties.

To Hilath’s knowledge, this is the first time a websites has been blocked since January 2009. He believes his website is part of a “bigger conservative fight against the [ruling] Maldivian Democratic Party” and is only the beginning of a new wave of censorship.

“This time I think the conservatives behind the Islamic Ministry think they can put pressure on the government to see all these things as anti-Islamic, like with the SAARC monument issue. More blogs will probably be blocked. I think this is just the beginning.”

The opposition to Hilath’s blog “is a minority of the population, but it’s very vocal and active,” he said. By contrast the younger generation, which composes approximately half of the Maldives population, may take a different view, he claimed.

“The younger generation is educated and enlightened about religion and freedom and Islamic principles. I think the majority will support my move. But few feel free to speak out,” he said.

Mohamed Nazeef, President of Maldives Media  Council (MMC), said he was not familiar with the blog in question. However he said that the media – even bloggers – were subject to the society it served.

“Even when you talk about democracy there are ethics, and you have to respect the prevailing culture of the country and the needs of its people. Even in the name of freedom there are boundaries. That’s why we have a media code of ethics.”

When asked whether a citizen’s blog could arguably represent or oppose the greater good, Nazeef explained that a balance between people and the law was important.

“The constitution must be respected because people are under the constitution. Nobody is above the law. If you want to do something that is not allowed you have to properly amend the law.”

Likes(0)Dislikes(0)

HRCM claims to have received 500 complaints of human rights violations

The Human Rights Commission of Maldives (HRCM) has revealed that some 500 complaints of alleged human rights violations were lodged at the commission in the past year.

According to statistics made public yesterday, the complaints include 106 cases concerning the right to work; 77 cases of unlawful detention; 74 cases of social protection to children, young, elderly and disadvantaged people; 47 cases concerning standard of health care; and 23 cases of torture or degrading treatment.

Speaking at a press conference, HRCM Chair Mariyam Azra Ahmed said the commission investigated and closed 216 cases between January 1 and September 14 this year.

Among major cases submitted to the commission in that period included the ruling Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) protest outside the Supreme Court on October 20, the alleged suicide of an inmate in Maafushi jail on November 15, the death of an infant due to “shoulder dystocia” on March 3 and complaints regarding inmates released under the government’s ‘Second Chance’ programme.

Azra informed press that the commission has undertaken studies to assess the human rights situation in the country and was currently drafting an assessment report on human trafficking in the Maldives due to be finalised at the end of the month.

Moreover, a draft of recommended amendments to the HRCM Act would be sent to parliament in the near future, Azra said.

The commission meanwhile conducted a number of programmes to raise public awareness of human rights, including training workshops and media campaigns by the advocacy department featuring video spots. Among notable public outreach programmes was the ‘Every neglect is an abuse’ campaign against child abuse.

The commission also released booklets and leaflets providing information on the Convention of the Rights of the Child (CRC) and Convention on Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).

Likes(0)Dislikes(0)

State Home Minister calls on HRCM to be “honest and fair” over second chance programme

State Home Minister Mohamed ‘Monaza’ Naeem has denied allegations made by the Human Rights Commission of the Maldives (HRCM) that the ministry is obstructing the investigation of cases involving inmates released under the government’s ‘second chance’ programme, and called on the organisation “to be honest and fair.”

HRCM recently met with the press and alleged that the government was releasing inmates who had committed offences such as theft, robbery and assault under the second chance programme, and that it was withholding information and obstructing the investigation.

Speaking at a press conference this afternoon at the Second Chance Programme Office, Naeem said that HRCM had requested the government send them details of the inmates released with their photographs and fingerprints.

Naeem said that the Home Ministry was trying to determine whether the HRCM had the legal authority to obtain fingerprints of the prisoners, because fingerprints were kept only for police purposes.

Naeem said he had met with commission members and briefed them about the second chance programme.

Furthermore, the State Minister said that the Ministry had been cooperating with the Human Rights Commission and called on the commission to treat everyone equally.

“HRCM said nothing about the incident that occurred near Alivaage, or following the death of an inmate in Maafushi prison,” Naeem said. “I personally called them and invited them to see the place where he died.”

An official from the Second Chance Programme told Minivan News that all inmates released were incarcerated for drug-related offences.

“To get drugs the drug addicts commit different crimes – they might steal something or commit a robbery,” he explained. “So far 304 inmates have been released and 17 of them have had to be returned to prison for breaking the rules of their release.”

He said all the inmates were released according to the law, and that the Second Chance Programme Office and police have been monitoring the inmates released.

“We randomly test urine of the inmates at least once a week,” he said. A number of inmates released under the programme have been taken back into custody after testing positive for drug use.

Likes(0)Dislikes(0)