Further death threats against Maldivian journalists have been published on a popular extremist blog, this time calling for the beheading of Ahmed ‘Sappe’ Moosa, the President’s Envoy for Science and Technology and editor of the Dhivehi Observer (DO), and blogger/journalist Ismail Khilath ‘Hilath’ Rasheed “for writing articles which flaunt religion”.
Reports of the threats were published this afternoon on the website of newspaper Haveeru. Rasheed, who was the subject of similar threats published on Muraasil.com last week, is known for being highly critical of Islamic fundamentalism, while Moosa’s UK-based publication has historically been highly antagonistic towards the former government.
“Next time there is the possibility of you making bold headlines on newspapers after your heads roll if you are caught during an outing [for a drink],” the threat read, according to a translation on Rasheed’s blog.
The threat’s author, an extremist blogger known as Jibue, also called for attacks on First Lady Laila Ali “and others who work in Male’, as it will be quite easy to target them as well.”
Rasheed explained that high profile Maldivian women who have chosen not to wear the head dress or buruga, such as Laila and MDP MP Mariya Didi, were frequently called upon to do so “to set an example” by the country’s more religiously conservative bloggers.
He noted that while he was unsure of Jihue’s identity, “other extremist bloggers seem to know and welcome him, and link to his website.”
The situation was “really dangerous”, Rasheed suggested. “There is no reason or common sense – they think they are struggling against this secularist liberal juggernaut and it’s making them paranoid. I think they are feeling cornered, because more and more people are speaking out [against] them. It’s really dangerous and I think anything is possible.”
Rasheed claimed he had considered closing his blog “many times” but said “close friends have advised me against it. It would be really easy for me to live a quiet and private life – I want to run away from this case. I will not go out tonight,” he said.
Sub-inspector Shiyam from the Maldives Police Service confirmed that while the threats had not been officially reported, “police have received information and are looking into the matter.”
Spokesman for the President’s Office Mohamed Zuhair said any such threats were of concern, “religious or otherwise”, and the government was monitoring the situation.
However he observed that during the election campaign it was common for some officials “to receive texts saying things like ‘We will bleed you till you die.’ But I didn’t notice a rise in third-degree murders – most of it is rhetoric,” Zuhair said.
State Minister of Islamic Affairs Sheikh Mohamed Shaheem Ali Saeed said such threats from “radicals” were “very bad and have to stop.”
“I call on these groups to stop [issuing threats] and think how they can solve problems through dialogue,” he said.
The Maldives Journalists’ Association (MJA) issued a press statement condemning threats against reporters, urging the government “to take necessary actions against people who issue such threats against journalists.”
“This Association calls on the government to stop the actions of extremists, which contradict with the vast scope of human rights in Islam, and their violation of press freedom,” the MJA said.
Meanwhile Ibn Khattab from IslamMaldives, a website calling for “the establishment of an Islamic State”, observed in a letter to Minivan News that “I doubt that there are many people who have not been threatened in one way or the other online, but we don’t make a big fuss about it.”
“One particular [blogger] by the name of Shadowrunner repeatedly threatens to kill and exterminate others and Hilath has no issue with publishing these comments,” Khattab noted.
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No threats against another's life or livelihood could be tolerated.
The police used to be so good rooting out those who were against the previous regime, why can't they actually protect people from threats of being beheaded!?!
This is completely unacceptable.
Maybe Mr Khattab and et al are subject to death threats but of my 12 years plus of participating in online communities i can honestly say i have never been subject to any threats what so ever. It might not be a big fuss or deal for Mr Khattab but calling for deaths of any one journalist, homosexual, infidel or otherwise on a public forum and especially when its made against specific person, in the rest of civilized world it is kinda of a big deal and people make fuss about it.
And why is the minister calling for dialog, this is not a negotiation why is he appeasing them? The government should
subpoena ip addresses / access logs from the hosting providers find them and make them face the consequences. No one should get away with openly calling for murder of people even if they do not agree with what they have to say.
no death threat should be taken lightly and hilath deserves concern...but then again some people just want attention...
I probably only satisfy myself by believing that the murders that take place on the streets of Male’ are conducted by people under the influence of drugs. And, if we can get rid of the drug problem, we can live our lives in a relatively safe environment.
Now I am thinking I am mistaken on this. Getting rid of drugs will not be enough.
I am horrified that Maldivians can issue threats to decapitate fellow Maldivians. And they do sound as if it is not a difficult thing for them to do at all. This is the most chilling and the scariest piece of news that I have heard about Maldives in decades.
Where is this country heading to?
What has led us to this? We are only starting to witness the after effects of thirty years of oppression and relative poverty.
The success of the present regime will be measured in how well they can smoothly steer the country through and out of this. I know it is a huge, huge challenge. But, without overcoming this challenge, Maldives cannot be the safe place it used to be; nor can Maldives be a prosperous nation.
Looks like Hillath wants some media attention, otherwise why this is a news, internet blogs any one can write anything on anonymous names. Minivan news and other news medias in this country are not focusing anything important to development of this nation. Specially Minivan news always try to polarize any situation small or big happen in our society for their advantage.
The previous regime had all three powers concentrated in one person. No one could speak out against him and there was no way he could be wrong. Today's situation is different. The most fundamental element of a peaceful society, ie, justice sytem is still under the controlled of DRP via control of parliament and appointment of judges by the previous president. Current president cannot do anything to legally lock these people up. It is still Maumoon who has the power to get these people under control not Anni. That is the simple truth.
Psh. Dialogue.
Every time they are defeated in debate, they fall back to base name calling and intimidation.
I don't see why we have to bother with diplomatic methods.
I am not surprised by the way some people do make a stand against such "alleged" threats. From what I have so far gathered, Hillath claims to have a very serious problem with himself. Enough reason for him to try and be two personlaities at the same time. Very likely he himself posted a "threat" against himself on "Muraasil" and make a claim of it. Fact is that he is one who is having the "attention-deficit / attention-seeking syndrome". No wonder some people do take such drastic measures to gain publicity. Sad news, for blokes like Hillath is, many of us know who you really are. Better if such "journalists" don't go trying to create an issue out of nothing.
Ah so finally the extremists are showing their true colors.
There's quite a difference between death threats against individuals compared to sarcastic comments by e.g. Shadowrunner about a growing group of psychos in the country.
The critics of fundamentalism do not want their threats to be taken seriously, instead put a smile on others' faces in this ever so growing conservative society.
Death threats against anyone should be taken very seriously. One of the key things we need to push for is an Evidence Act so that tape recordings and video footage as well as internet records can be used as evidence by the judges.
@Marina
so, comments from Shadowrunner about decapitating, mauling, raping and shooting people whose opinions he cannot digest is equivalent to sarcasm while death threats from "fundamentals" are not?
The Musketeer:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libel
I'm astonished at how lightly Islamic affairs is taking this.
Death threats should NOT be tolerated. Serious death threats, calling on the public to behead someone and let them bleed on the street, a call for blood, not some sarcastic comment on a blog. These people should be tracked down and made to face the consequences. If it turns out to be self generated, then those people should face consequences for wasting everyones time.
The Maldives seems to be becoming famous for just letting the wrong people get away with everything. Won't be long before some people begin to consider themselves invincible.
Why is the government spokesperson Mr. Zuhair taking such a light attitude towards a threat on the first lady. On what basis is he equating threats received during the election and this? Looks like neither the Presidents office nor the Islamic Ministry takes this seriously.
This happens when some violates the rights obtained under the constitution. Hilath should also respect the Islamic tenents when reporting about religions.
Here's an extract from Shadowrunners' blog:
"I'LL START ANOTHER HOLOCAUST, WITH YOU AS THE OVEN FODDER!. I'LL HUNT YOU ALL DOWN AND WIPE YOU AND YOUR FETID KIND FROM THIS WORLD!."
For me this is more extreme than the threats against Sappe and Hilath. How come this never made headlines on minivannews?
Why do people like to blame the police always? The current system in the Maldives is like this:
- Of those who commit crimes only a certain % of people are arrested
- Of those caught(even red-handed) even a fewer number of people are convicted
- Of those who are convicted and sentenced to jail, only some actually go to jail
- Of those who are sent to jail, hardcore criminals with record of huge crimes only serve a small % of their sentence. Those who have good connections with gangs and/or government officials are released by the corrupt and incompetent DPRS.
So basically those who stay in prison are those unlucky fellows who belong to poor families and have no connections who are usually sentenced to jail for petty crimes.
When you call civilized world, if any one can deny holocaust, why its not acceptable? Why the hell civilized world is killing innocent people in Iraq and Afganistan. Can we tolerate this salim waheed(jeffry)? Of course violence is not acceptable, at Prophet Muhammed (PBUH) time some people bullied, made fun of him but he did not use violence. in Islam we cannot take things personally, we should go by the teaching that’s why Caliph Ali DID not kill the person who spit to his face on the war, coz he did not want to kill a person with personal grievance. People, follow the teaching of Prophet Muhammed (PBUH).
@mohamed
Shadowrunner has been threatening torture, Holocaust & other forms of sadistic acts for over a year.
They are empty threats just like the guy.
Most people know this, hence nobody cares.
if people want to blow that out of proportion, they can do it easily just like current one which minivan and others are trying very hard to inflate.
This is a tip of an iceberg. Maldives can never function if we go the Arab way. We need to build friends ships with non- Arab Islamic countries like Turkey, Indonesia and Malaysia.
Arabs are using Islam to preserve their barbaric culture...
this is becoming interesting now? i think we are gonna see the end of jihad style and mullaz in Maldives soon. We will soon see a more tolerant and extreme islam free Maldives where non muslims get there right to practice there religion in there own places of worship and even drink alcohol in hotels in maldivain islands as well in male'.. Inshaa Allha we will bring an end to this tyrant from growing in Maldives.
i think we should leave from minivannew forum ..enough is enough. first it was mariyam omidi now our own citizens are been subjected to been chased out of the country for there views expressed, This will never end like. We should go out on the roads and show the government of Maldive this country will not be dictated by Mullaz or adhaalth. we should end this now or we will get chased or killed by these mullaz in the name of Islam or jihad
Oh please!
Hilath is trying to gain popularity! Don't you see it???
And he is drawing Sappe and Laila into it, just to cover up by including others.
It is absolutely shocking that so many people are falling into it.
All atheists ,those who wants to establish a multicultural community and those who oppose true Islam being spread in the Maldives had been working day in and out to blow out the flame of Islam.All these people had joined hands together to overthrow Maumoon(The Dictator).Once this obstacle had been removed they have targeted Islam and its true followers.But they didn't knew that there is a greater force with the true believers.Allah(SWA) had promised us that the world will end after the Mulims are victorious.This generation our generation InshaAllah had been blessed by ALLAH(SWA)because we are the genration which will start this victorious march.
No Maldivian will doubt that past five years true followers of Islam had grown immensely and more people had learned what really Islam is. People attending the religious sermons had been three time more than political gatherings of the biggest political parties.Plus recent gathering held to ban alcohol sale in local communities had created fear in the hearts of these people.Also the political parties had realized the potential threat Islam poses to them.Islam is a religion which teachers its followers that only servitude is to ALLAH(SWA).It is a religion which broke the Romans,Persians and in this century Russians, Americans,British and its allied forces had tasted the strength of true Islam.So all the enemies of Islam fear the spread of the truth and fear that our slavery to corrupt governments change to ALLAH(SWA).
This is what you are seeing.Websites,Television,radios and the government which had sworn to protect Islam had joined together to destroy it in the name of spreading moderate Islam in the Maldives.The government we voted had betrayed us and its citizen by selling their religion and heritage to western hypocrites.They have spread every rumor every lie over throw Islam.
Mr.Nasheed,Mr.Waheed and all Ministers and all enemies of Islam beware that ALLAH(SWA) is with us and there is a day that no one will have shelter from bodyguards and fortresses.
I advice my Muslim brother not to anything which will lead to bloodshed and disorder.That is what we had been taught by our beloved messenger(SAW)
ALLAHAKBAR,ALLAHAKBAR,ALLAHAKBAR,ALLAHAKBAR ,ALLAHAKBAR,ALLAHAKBAR,ALLAHAKBAR.
As someone who has corresponded with both the Shadowrunner and Ibn Khattab, the extremist blogger, I can say that there's no comparison to be made.
One is a sarcastic blog that borders on comic, and it is made quite obvious.
Unfortunately, bloggers like Ibn Khattab and Jibue appear to be people who are violent Islamists, driven by the utopian dream of conquering the world with their ideology.
When they make their chilling - often hateful and violent - comments, the cold-bloodedness of it makes one wonder what's happening to the Maldives.
Are we going to kill, behead and murder each other for petty ideology now?
These kind of threats are utterly unacceptable in a civilized society - and the state must ensure that no citizen is harassed and intimidated in this manner for speaking out against religious hypocrisy.
... has spoken!
Smells like a Fart - war is going on here.
rilwan,
You are accusing many people and judging them as well. I respect your emotional opinion but you have to be a realist to look into what so called your way of Islam has brought to this country.
For people like you everything is “black and white”. It has never been like that and will never be. People like you bring bad names to Islam, because you cannot swallow that there are people who are different from you guys.
People are different and have different tastes and they worship differently. Because of people like you many people hate religion.
Dear Readers
It has been a while since I bothered to write on this website, but as I see the nation slipping into an abyss of anarchy and wasted resources, rendering the country to poverty and extremist rule, I believe I should write one more time. You see dear readers; unless we do something today Maldives as we know it today will seize to exist within the next 16 months to be precise.
We have a nation in a very vulnerable state, the social fabric is torn thanks to Gayoom, the treasury is empty the country is in financial chaos, the new Regime does not have a clue as to how we can get out of the mess. Our president seems to believe that as he did in the defeat of Gayoom that if he repeated something often enough and long enough things will happen, however the first 15 months of his rule proves that he the President is off the mark by a huge margin.
While the regime is volleying back and forth with mundane Rhetoric, It is once again up to the people to regain control of the country and do something about it. The extremist are moving forward with their agenda and their population is on the rise. Very soon they will have the numbers to take political control of the country. This has been fuelled by a careless move by the president to allow sale of alcohol primarily targeted at allowing holiday Inn to sell alcohol. From day one this move was doomed to fail. However the conceited and self centered lot in the MDP government ignored the repercussions of a loss to the extremist and went ahead with it. The President then covered up by saying it is a victory for the MDP government, however the failure to implement the ruling for allowing the sale of alcohol gave fuel to the extremist to stand and rise together. Having tasted political victory, which by the way is the first real victory to the Mullah’s
So you see dear readers now we have created a sleeping giant to rise, while the gangs and drug lords are rising on the one hand the extremist movement are rising on the other hand. This dear readers is phenomenon that will rise to catastrophic proportions’
It is almost too late, yet we can change it now.
What are our options?
Option 1: Get a proper government in place and I don’t mean bringing Gayoom back or even the thug infested DRP.
Option 2: A Military coup, a dictatorship that will clean the country of corruption, extremist and drug lords
Option 3 the best and the most peaceful method however, would be for President Nasheed and his Government to get off their high horse and start listening to people’s advice and the advice of those who love this nation. “Especially President Nasheed”.
Mr. President do not let this country go to the gutter; do not let the masses who voted for you die in vain. Do not sentence the nation to a systemic suicide as a result of your conceited and self-centered policies
This is what i do not understand about the so called true-followers like Rilwan; That Allah is "with" them and some how the purpose of this whole life, universe is reduced to a war between true-muslims and non-believers!
Is it really that difficult to see a failure of nerve and imagination in these people?
Generation Jihad have infiltrated our small community and we are all responsible for it. the youngters with radical views have been misled, brainwashed and they need help!
Sorry to disappoint you, but the world does not seem to end as soon as you think. T
here are thousands of religious streams in the world, and Islam with all its different ways of performing is not even the largest. You have to accept that, like diversity of living beings has evolved over the last millions of years, there cannot be only ONE right way for everyone. Nature is diverse, so is humanity. Not everyone's favourite dish is fish, my dear.
It cannot be said often enough - be tolerant towards others who have decided not to follow what you follow, live & let live.
You are encouraging a war between muslims and non-muslims/non-believers, like Stewie said above. This is not acceptable and only proves that humans are the most stupid and intolerant among all animals (I guess you deny that humans are animals, right?).
all who oppose Wahhabis, slafes and osama bin ladens religion are not necessarily atheist. they could be Muslims Christians or even Buddhists. The osama bi ladhens religion and its older versions and have crossed lines beyond human societies can tolerate. That is why the argument of tolerance cant be presented in there defense. They declare war inside schools, civil areas and even in labor rooms and of all they put forward the most peace loving human in history i.e. Prophet Mohamed's (PBUH) hadeese (saying) to justify the killing of innocent lives.
For gods sake you all Mullaz even the Prophet (PBUH) lived with people of other faiths.. is nt that enough for your arguments to be invalid...did he burn the people who were having stone idols of worship in the holy house in Suadhi when he ruled over them against the non muslims when he won over non-muslims?. Get a life boys and learn the facts about islam or sorry you guys dont follow islam maybe?
@mohamed:
"Here’s an extract from Shadowrunners’ blog:
“I’LL START ANOTHER HOLOCAUST, WITH YOU AS THE OVEN FODDER!. I’LL HUNT YOU ALL DOWN AND WIPE YOU AND YOUR FETID KIND FROM THIS WORLD!.”
"
You are under arrest for copyright violation (unauthorized copying of lines from Dynamite and Fail Episode 6 "Hitler meets the iPhone") and using it in the name of unfunny. Please report to the internet court right away. Your ID is 1627A. You may bring one defense attorney and one sarcasometer.
---
This country is riddled with all sorts of ills. Gangs rule the streets, rape victims are everywhere. Muggings have become everyday crimes. But of course, it doesn't matter to the so-called muslims. What matters to them is the further haraunging of our mothers and sisters, the blockading of our economic recovery and the siphoning of our national funds.
People like that deserve to be laughed at.
@viasim and @ali, you guys have put my argument more eloquently than I ever could. Thanks!.
These Maldivian muslim fanatics want to cover up themselves faces from head to toe but at the same time want Kafir (non-muslim) to come to Maldives in bikinis with their Euros and Dollars.