Cartoonist In Court

Ahmed Abbas, the prominent political cartoonist and designer of Maldivian banknotes, was brought to court from Maafushi jail this morning for a case surrounding a quote he gave to Minivan Daily newspaper.

His court appointment, which was scheduled for 9:30am at the High Court in Male’, was postponed for a week after Abbas was unable to bring a lawyer. He was only informed of the court appointment in the middle of the night, and was given no means to contact his lawyer.

Abbas, who has been imprisoned since early November, was quoted in the newspaper on August 2, 2005, saying: “What we should do to those in the Star Force [police] who beat us, is to seek them out individually and for us to act in such a manner that makes them feel that beatings result in pain, otherwise they will not be subdued.”

Abbas, who has been labelled as a “prisoner of conscience” by human rights NGO, Amnesty International, sensationally sought refuge in the UN building in the capital Male’ on November 2 after being sentenced in absentia to 6 months imprisonment by the Government for inciting violence against police. The UN was unable to offer him sanctuary.

Since then, his daughter Elena Ahmed Abbas (Dhombee), delivered a letter to the UN Resident Coordinator in the Maldives, Patrice Coeur-Bizot, asking for his “swift intervention” to help secure her father’s release. That was in late November 2006, but her father remains in jail.

The government has recently fallen back into its habit of bullying the independent media after a relatively quiet period. Recently Minivan Daily’s Deputy-Editor, Nazim Sattar, was summoned to court for a case about the same article. Nazim is accused of having written the article and is being tried for “disobedience to order.”

Phillip Wellman, a journalist with this website, has also been deported and blacklisted for a period of two years. The government says he does not have permission to be in the country after a previous expulsion. Wellman was thrown out of the country in early November last year after being arrested in Thinadhoo, Ghaafu Daalu Atoll, while covering a planned opposition protest on the island.

Mohamed Yooshau, Thinadhoo correspondent for Minivan Daily was also recently given a sentence of 4 months’ banishment to a remote island after being convicted of “disobedience to order”. The sentence was suspended for three years.

The charges came after he visited the Thinadhoo Island Office to ask the Island Chief why two government employees, Shaheed Mohamed and Ibrahim Ahmed, also members of the opposition Maldivian Democratic Party, had been fired.

All of the cases are targeted at the Minivan organisation, which runs Dhivehi language newspaper and website, Minivan Daily, this English language website, and Minivan Radio – whose signal is scrambled in Male’ and operates despite a government ban on private broadcasting.

The Maldives currently ranks 144th in the Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index, slightly lower than Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, but higher than Russia and Iraq.