Tag: bbc

Raajje TV disputes legal threat from BBC after airing Hardtalk recording

Local private television channel Raajje TV has disputed claims made by the local media that the BBC has threatened to take legal action against the station, after it released a live telecast of an interview with former President Mohamed Nasheed that was to be shown on the BBC’s Hardtalk Program.

Nasheed recorded the interview in the Raajje TV studio and spoke to Hardtalk presenter Stephen Sackur over the phone.

The interview concerned Nasheed’s allegations that he had been forced to resign and was effectively ousted in to a coup d’état on Tuesday February 7. The show was scheduled to be aired on Thursday night, by Raajje TV, but was live broadcasted during its recording last night.

Local media Haveeru reported that BBC had threatened to take legal action, citing an alleged email forwarded to Raaje TV from Hard Talk producer, Heather Shiels.

In the email Sheils expressed her disappointment over the actions of Raaje TV, which she described as a “clear breach of both contract and copyright and the BBC editorial guidelines,” Haveeru reported.  “We have asked our lawyers to investigate this matter.”

Speaking to Minivan News, Raaje TV Deputy CEO Abdulla Yameen refuted the claims, saying that “nobody from our organisation has received an email from the BBC threatening take legal action against us”.

He said that the local media is reporting the claims because they could not “digest the popularity” Raajje TV has gained recently for the up to date coverage of the intense political unrest in the Maldives.

“Our action [the live telecast] was solely based on the negotiations we had with the BBC,” Yameen said, adding that the channel had not violated any copyright law.

In an earlier edition of Hardtalk aired in December 2010, Nasheed was grilled on his adherence to human rights, the Maldives’ financial condition and its commitment to combating climate change.

Nasheed on Hardtalk part 1/3

Nasheed on Hardtalk part 2/3

Nasheed on Hardtalk 3/3

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Maldives has seen nothing like Addu’s SAARC Summit: BBC

The Maldives has seen nothing before like the SAARC Summit in Addu, writes Charlie Haviland for BBC News.

“Every so often ordinary vehicles, including the buses that ferry the journalists around, have to pull into the tiny country lanes and wait while fleets of black Maldivian limousines carrying VVIPs pass by.

“They move back and forth along the road which, at 14km, is the longest in the entire Maldives archipelago, spanning four southerly islands via causeways.

A stringent security regime has been set up to protect the top officials.

“Appropriately, the tiny host nation has chosen “Building Bridges” as the theme for this 17th conference of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), which was founded in 1985 grouping Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka and admitted Afghanistan in 2005.

The chosen theme reflects a desire that the boundaries so evident in the region should start to dissolve and that transport, communication and trade linkages should thrive.

The historically tense relationship between India and Pakistan has been the focus of strong interest here.

Their two prime ministers, Manmohan Singh and Yusuf Raza Gilani, had warm words for each other after their bilateral talks on the summit’s sidelines at a luxury island resort, which took place in a luxury thatched hut above a white sandy shore.

The building of confidence is the theme of the moment, three years after the relationship plunged to rock-bottom after the Mumbai attacks in which 166 people were killed.

The Indian foreign secretary said the two neighbouring, nuclear-armed rivals would be moving to implement easier trade and travel measures, agreed in July.

Full story

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Vice President meets Sri Lankan President Rajapaksa during UN General Assembly

Vice President Dr Mohammed Waheed Hassan has paid a courtesy call on Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa at the 66th session of the UN General Assembly in New York.

The Vice President’s Office later refuted reports that Dr Waheed discussed the Sri Lankan human rights situation with Rajapaksa during the meeting, following media reports quoting Sri Lankan officials to the contrary.

Haveeru on Tuesday quoted a senior Sri Lankan official as saying that during a meeting between Rajapaksa and the Vice President, Dr Waheed “assured that he will be supporting Sri Lanka’s stance on the human rights issue.”

The Vice President’s office later claimed the meeting was a courtesy call during which Dr Waheed said it was refreshing to  hear the Sri Lankan President talk about trade unions and north-south cooperation in his speech [to the UN], and that there was “no mention of the human rights situation in Sri Lanka.”

Sri Lanka is currently conducting an internal investigation of these allegations, which refer to acts of violence committed by both government and rebel forces in the final phases of Sri Lanka’s civil war.

Numerous human rights groups, including Amnesty International (AI) and Human Rights Watch (HRW), have rejected Sri Lanka’s investigation on the grounds that its Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) does not meet international standards.

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has reported that human rights groups found the commission flawed because “its members were appointed by the government, it has no real mandate to investigate war crimes in the last stages of the conflict, lacks any mechanism to protect witnesses and falls short of minimum international standards of a commission of inquiry.”

The Sri Lankan government has denied committing any offenses. The Maldivian government said it supports Sri Lanka’s wish to solve internal issues without external involvement.

Today, the Maldives President’s Press Secretary Mohamed Zuhair issued a statement expressing support for the Tamil people.

“The President of the Maldives would like to express his good wishes to all Tamil people. The Tamil people have always been like brothers to Maldivians. The President would like to see peace and harmony in our region and has expressed his desire for all people to live peacefully together.”

Human Rights Watch recently applauded the Maldives as one of the seven most important countries on the UN Human Rights Council. It expressed puzzled concern, however, over the Maldives’ “regrettable” support of Sri Lanka at this time.

“The Maldives should revisit its approach on Sri Lanka in order to bring it in line with its otherwise principled approach to human rights at the Council,” said the report.

Minister of Foreign Affairs Ahmed Naseem said he did not wish to comment on the issue.

Meanwhile, UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon has appointed a panel to advise him on accountability issues in Sri Lanka, reports the BBC. The Sri Lankan government rejected the panel, however, and said it would not issue visas to UN panel members visiting Sri Lanka.

The UN Office for the High Commissioner of Human Rights (OHCHR) today said they are urging Sri Lanka “to ensure there is a genuine accountability process to address the serious violations believed to have been committed during the last months of the  war in Sri Lanka.”  The OHCHR is waiting to see how member states take action on the issue, “but, of course, the United Nations hopes Maldives – like other UN members – will encourage Sri Lanka to address this important issue.”

Late last week, President Mohamed Nasheed met with Sri Lankan Prime Minister Disanayaka Mudiyanselage Jayaratne regarding the upcoming South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit, due to be held in Addu City in November. The heads of state also discussed ways to strengthen ties between the two countries.

The SAARC summit could afford the Maldives an opportunity to promote human rights in south asia, a region that is reportedly slower than others to adopt international human rights standards.

The Maldives recently became the 118th member of the International Criminal Court (ICC), a close partner of the UN.

“As a chair of the SAARC summit, Maldives will have quite an influence on South Asian countries attending this year’s event,” she said previously. “It will certainly be constructive in reviewing human rights, a key point we plan to address at the summit.”

Evelyn Balais-Serrano, Asia-Pacific Coordinator for the ICC’s advocacy NGO Coalition for the International Criminal Court (CICC), called the Maldives’ accession to the Rome Statute a significant step for human rights in south asia.

She noted that Sri Lanka is “a long way” from membership at the ICC.

ICC membership requires the Maldives to uphold ICC standards and rulings. “The Maldives cannot do anything if the ICC decides to investigate and put into trial the perpetrators of crimes in Sri Lanka,” said Balais-Serrano. “If suspected criminals from Sri Lanka seek refuge in the territory of the Maldives, as a state party to the ICC, the government is obliged to cooperate with the Court by arresting  the criminals.”

Sri Lanka’s findings are due for release on November 15.

Clarification: This story has been updated to reflect a clarification from the Vice President’s Office that human rights were not discussed at the meeting with Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

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BBC team detained, tortured by Gaddafi forces

Three BBC journalists covering the civil unrest in Libya were arrested and tortured by forces loyal to President Muammar Gaddafi, before being subjected to a mock execution.

Soldiers fired shots past the heads of the journalists, and they were made to wear hoods and told they were to be killed. At one stage the journalists were held in a cage while Libyan captives around them them were tortured. All journalists were in the country with permission of the Libyan government.

Describing the other prisoners, Turkish cameraman Goktay Koraltan said “I cannot describe how bad it was. Most of them were hooded and handcuffed really tightly, all with swollen hands and broken ribs. They were in agony. They were screaming.”

UK national Chris Cobb-Smith said the three journalists were lined up facing a wall while a man put a submachine gun next to their necks and pulled the trigger.

A Palestinian reporter for BBC Arabic, Feras Killani, was interrogated and then taken to a carpark where he was beaten with a pipe and a long stick. Killani then had a mask taped to his face through which he struggled to breathe.

After the BBC and the UK Foreign Office intervened, a Libyan man “who spoke perfect Oxford English” arrived and signed the paperwork to release the three reporters.

“They took us to their rest room. It was a charm offensive, packets of cigarettes, tea, coffee, offers of food,” the reporters said.

The BBC team had been covering a battle 30 miles from the Libyan capital when they were arrested at a checkpoint.

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BBC Hardtalk grills Nasheed on economy, climate, human rights

President Mohamed Nasheed has been grilled on his adherence to human rights, the Maldives’ financial condition and its commitment to combating climate change on the BBC’s Hardtalk programme, broadcast this week in the UK.

Journalist Stephen Sackur observed that given the President’s history as an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience, “it is strange that you are now a president at loggerheads with parliament, and who has deployed the army to the streets to quell disturbances.”

Noting that the country had improved markedly in terms of freedom of expression, commitment to human rights and allowing political activities, Nasheed also acknowledged that “there are issues in our country.”

“We are a very young democracy and we are settling down, and we are consolidating democracy and we are going to face challenges. We are presently the only 100 percent Muslim multi-party democracy in the world,” he claimed.

Nasheed was also questioned by Sackur over the government’s arrest and detention of MPs.

In response, Nasheed denied the government had any say over who was charged, claiming that “the Prosecutor General’s office is an independent institution and I’m extremely glad they have dropped the charges.”

“Basically, we have the last dictatorship as the opposition,” he told Sackur. “[But] we do not want to destroy opposition through legal action, because then we will not have an opposition. I believe it will be best to bring about justice through the democratic process, and not necessarily by charging these people.”

How the government should deal with the former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom was “a major issue for us”, Nasheed said.

“In the past, our culture has been very ruthless [towards] former presidents. There has always been a circle and it’s hard to pull out of [it]. But the manner in which we deal with Gayoom’s shows us a path of how [we] move forward. I believe democracy will dispense justice better than a courtroom drama.”

Sackur also challenged Nasheed on the country’s financial position, noting that the IMF had delayed the third tranche of its assistance to the Maldives.

“[The IMF] wants the civil service reduced instantly, but we would snap if we did that,” Nasheed said. “We have to be politically mindful of what would happen after that. We inherited 30 years of dictatorship and a huge government – in the absence of political parties all a dictator can do is build up a huge civil service.”

Nasheed denied that the Maldives had negotiated a payment from the US in exchange for taking a prisoner from Guantanamo Bay, as suggested by recent leaked cables of US diplomatic exchanges.

“I don’t think there is substance [to those claims],” Nasheed responded. “We wanted to take a detainee before we came to government. We came to government on a human rights platform.”

On the subject of climate change, Nasheed said he was disappointed in both the Americans and the Chinese “for so irrelevantly talking about this issue as though it were arms control or trade negotiations. You cannot cut a deal with mother nature, or negotiate with planetary boundaries.”

But he noted improvement in so-called sustainable commitments being made by countries such as Brazil, South Africa and China in particular.  “I think the Chinese have gone a long way towards [investing] in renewables,” Nasheed added.

Asked by Sackur as to why the rest of the world should care about the fate of the Maldives, Nasheed responded that “what happens to the Maldives today happens to England tomorrow.”

Listen to the full programme on Radio 4 (English)

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