Tag: maldives news

Life imprisonment and two months fasting for man who murdered brother

The Criminal Court has convicted Saeed Hussain of Neykurandhoo in Haadhaalu Atoll of murdering his own brother in October last year.

“Considering the confession of the accused, and as it is proven by the words of the doctor who declared the death of Umar Hussain [his brother], the death was the direct result of the stabbings,’’ the judge said.

The judge said that Saeed could not prove that his actions were conducted without the intention of murdering his brother, ruling him guilty of murder and sentencing him to life imprisonment.

He also ordered that Saeed fast for two months.

Saeed’s brother Umar died after he was stabbed nine times in different parts of his body. One of the attacks cut the veins in his neck.

Saeed admitted that he stabbed his brother but claimed he was drunk at the time, did not even know how many times he stabbed his brother. He claimed he attacked his brother after he reportedly saw him attacking his mother.

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Comment: Corruption must not taint PK relief funds

I was responsible for looking after one of the largest disaster programmes in the Maldives following the tsunami.

I was one of the members in the decision making body of Action Aid International of a 30 million pound Tsunami Rehabilitation and Reconstruction multi-country programme in Thailand, Sri Lanka, India, Maldives, Indonesia and Somaliland.

Immediately after tsunami, I went with UNDP teams, Oxfam, Red Cross and other disaster teams to conduct initial disaster assessments. It was a time consuming, trying process to assess the damage done by the tsunami and identify the needs of people.

No group of people, community or country wanted the same things. It was hectic, tiring and required extensive development to help the survivors.

I wonder why the PK Relief fund is deliberating and has announced it will be sending a there member team to Pakistan. They were careful to announce that they will not spend money from the PK Relief funds for the visit, but in same breath they said that they will raise funds for the visit to Pakistan.

This sounds same thing to me – they will be using the name of the PK Relief fund to raise funds, which is akin to spending PK Relief money. I think this is a waste of resources and energy as the money should be donated to the Government of Pakistan.

Providing disaster relief is a technical and difficult task, and requires experts to conduct a disaster assessment. The processes require conducting an assessment of the damage, identifying the needs of the people as well as the infrastructure.

It’s futile to think that a team who has no knowledge and understanding of the country, the extent of damage, the culture and the people can decided on what or where to donate.

The best experts will be the Government of Pakistan or the international parties who are already on the ground in Pakistan evaluating the situation of the floods, such as the UN, Pakistan Red Crescent, Pakistan Action Aid or others. Another possibility is through the Maldivian High Commission based in Pakistan – all these agencies are based in Pakistan and would have firsthand knowledge.

Maldives do not require a team from PK Relief Fund to go to Pakistan.

What PK Fund should plan is how to keep track of how the fund is being spent. Monitor and request whether the funding has reached to the neediest. PK fund can make the Government of Pakistan accountable through good governance and monitoring mechanisms.

Publish the information received from Government of Pakistan and international stakeholders, making it accessible to the citizens of the Maldives at regular intervals, after donating the funds.

I would advise the PK Relief not send a team to Pakistan and hand over the money to the Ambassador of Pakistan. I would also request a public outcry against this proposed action by the PK relief fund Committee, for contemplating such disastrous action on behalf of the Maldivians who donated the funds without expert knowledge of the issue.

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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Nine staff at Alila Villa resign alleging threats of dismissal over strike action

Nine staff members working for the food and beverage (F&B) department of luxury five star resort Alila Villa have resigned following a strike in protest against the termination of the F&B supervisor.

“The staff resigned after the resort’s management warned them that they would be dismissed if they continued the strike,’’ a staff member working at the hotel told Minivan News. “They were demanding the management reinstate the job of the sacked supervisor, and remained in their rooms without coming out for work.’’

The staff member alleged the supervisor was dismissed for failing to sending his staff to a training class.

“The nine staffs working under him gave in their resignation letter and left the island when they realised that continuing the strike would only get them sacked,” he said.

The staff member claimed resort management had been looking for an opportunity to dismiss the F&B manager, after an incident during final days of Ramadan when the General Manager’s room was vandalised.

“Following the incident police officers arrived at the island and arrested three suspects,” the staff member said.

He claimed the suspects were kept in custody “without any evidence or witnesses”, but were released the next day.

“The three staff [arrested] were the three suspected by management [of committing the crime], but they were unaware of the incident,’’ the staff member claimed, alleging that management subsequently began blacklisting and dismissing “anyone who raised their voice against the management over poor staff facilities.”

“We keep telling the management that this is a five star luxury hotel, and they could do much better than this,’’ he said. “But everyone who tries to raise this subject gets terminated with the slightest provocation.’’

Human Resources Manager of Alila Villa Deepa Manual said Minivan’s information was incorrect.

“Similar events took place in the hotel, but at the moment we would not like to disclose any information regarding the issue,’’ she said.

Vice President of the Tourism Employment Association of the Maldives (TEAM) Ibrahim Mauroof, said the issue of staff mistreatment at resorts was “an issue of concern”.

”Because of the influence of resort owners, staff are often unaware of the rights they have that are stated in the constitution,” said Mauroof. ”Most of the time they do not even know how to demand their rights when they are abused.”

Mauroof added the new laws being drafted governing strike action would narrow the right to strike enshrined in the constitution.

”[The regulations] says that a strike can only be conducted with the consent of management, after it has been provided in a written document,” he said. ”Furthermore, if the strike obstructs the services and affects the customers, the strike can be declared unlawful and striking staff can be arrested.”

He said the issue was “a great concern”, but that it could still be resolved if the organisations involved “came to one table to discuss the issue.”

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Letter on powerlessness

Dear Maldives,

The kind of grandiose, egomaniacal, demagogic display one sees in many Maldivians may appear to be a case of too much self-love. But in fact, it is not love at all. It is hate. It is sadness. It is self loathing. It is an aggressive reaction to rejection. No genuine self love there at all.

When one feels powerless to turn this hatred against another, to vent it outwardly, it is turned inward and becomes depression. Then it is seen for what it really is. Emptiness, sadness, hunger for true love, a desparate craving for a sense of genuine self dignity.

So, I would like to tell you that every Maldivian, the mentally insane, the lonely and rejected, the victim of abuse, the aggressive power hungry politician, all, each and every Maldivian is special, unique, and sacred, for one reason, YOU are deeply precious to the Creator as the pinnacle of a Creation done out of the purpose of Self-Sacrificial Love.

When I read about a young man from Velidhoo committing suicide, and about children being killed in gang warfare, I know that that the angel’s grieve for you Maldivians, because they feel how special you are.

I am sorry to get on this website and quack on and on but I have seen too much sadness in your paradise, sadness expressing itself mainly as hatred, yet I can see that underneath it is sadness. I have too much caring for your ppl, because I can see how sensitive and intelligent, how beautiful Maldivians are, and it aches my heart to see people so sacred dying. I can’t help it.

Not enough respect for the sacredness of human dignity, not enough compassion for the mentally challenged and for the victim of sexual abuse because not enough genuine self respect.

I can’t wait to meet the young man from Velidhoo who committed suicide in paradise because there he will know how sacred he really is…

Ben Plewright

All letters are the sole view of the author and do not reflect the editorial policy of Minivan News. If you would like to write a letter piece, please submit it to [email protected]

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Maafushi prison administrators deny media tour of ‘Pentagon’

The media were prevented from getting access to the maximum security ‘Pentagon’ wing of the Maafushi prison yesterday when the sunset, seemingly, caught prison officials by surprise.

“It is too dark now”, Mohamed Asif, Assistant Superintendant of the prison told members of the media who had been waiting an hour for the promised tour. The media were on Maafushi, on invitation from the UNDP, to cover the closing ceremony of a human rights training programme for prison staff it ran in conjunction with state bodies.

Home Affairs Minister Mohamed Shihab, accompanied by UNDP Resident Coordinator Andrew Cox and other officials from the Ministry, were given a tour of the prison. For reasons that remain unexplained, the media were not allowed to join the tour.

“You have to wait until the Minister and his delegation finish the tour”, Asif said, in what appeared to be acquiescence to media requests to join the tour. Members of the media were then made to sit on some beachside loungers, watching the sun go down in the company of a uniformed prison officer. After an hour, they were told the time had come to leave the island. There was no word of the promised tour.

When pressed, Asif told the media that since night had fallen, it was now too dark to see anything.

‘Promoting Access to Justice’ and protecting human rights is the UNDP project under which the training programme for the prison officers was held. 17 prison officers received certificates after a three-day training session by a group of judges from various courts in the country.

Speaking on behalf of the trainees, Trainee Prison Officer Abdul Qadir Ibrahim, said they have now realised that the Constitution is “as essential for life as water itself.”

Inmates at Maafushi prison petitioned President Mohamed Nasheed in July this year for better conditions at the prison. They claimed that over 100 prisoners were being held in cells designed to hold 35, forcing them to take turns sleeping.

When they did get a bed, there were no mattresses, and when there were mattresses there was no bed linen. They alleged that prison officers cited shortage of government funds as the reason for the lack of resources and facilities at the prison.

The media, although on the island and within the premises of the prison when a tour of the prison was being given to government officials and the UNDP, were unable to independently verify any of the allegations as they were not allowed to join the tour.

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Partisan media obstructing journalists from reporting ethically

The Maldivian media needs to move beyond the basics of reporting and on to media ethics if it is to build its credibility, become independent and break free from the influence of partisan politics, urged visiting journalism trainer Tiare Rath, Iraq Editorial Manager for the Institute of War and Peace Reporting (IWPR).

Rath, an American journalist and trainer who has worked in the US, Africa, Asia and the Middle East for companies including CNN and the New York Times, spoke last Thursday to a small group of Maldivian journalists and NGO representatives about the challenges and opportunities for journalism in a young democracy.

“I have been really impressed with news judgement here, and the understanding of the basic principles of journalism,” Rath said of her experience training young reporters in the Maldives.

“But on the other hand, one of the major issues all my students talked about is resistance among newsroom leadership – editors and publishers. Even if the journalists support and understand the principles being taught, they consistently tell me they cannot apply them,” Rath said. “This is a very, very serious problem that needs to be addressed.”

Rath compared the state of the Maldives media with that in Iraq, “where most of the media is partisan because that’s where the money comes from.”

“They haven’t been able to develop an advertising market, so political parties and powerful individuals back their own media outlets,” she said. “There have been a lot of issues with bias, media ownership and political pressuring of [Iraqi] journalists, and they don’t have the level of legal protection enjoyed by the media in the Maldives.”

However, despite the high-levels of violence obstructing democracy in Iraq, “the news media has flourished – there are more than 300 newspapers in Baghdad alone, and across the country there are thousands of newspapers and many small radio stations, and a lot of news sites and blogs.”

Media in countries like Afghanistan face additional problems, Rath added, “such as the lack of educated young people in the post-Taliban environment who want to be journalists. That has been a major issue.”

In Afghanistan the threat to journalists was primarily harassment and imprisonment, Rath explained, “and there have been efforts by the government to block out the media when it pushes too hard, especially on certain issues like drugs or warlords. The government just issues a media blackout and refuses to engage with the media.”

Even where it was present, “the response to any kind of critical coverage has been really hard. Again it’s a partisan media, because the traditional power brokers are the ones backing and financing it, rather than it being based on advertising [revenue].”

So while it was troubled, the situation facing the media in the Maldives was “a breath of fresh air” in comparison, Rath said.

“While there are challenges, a lot of other countries in a similar period following democratic transition are facing a lot more violence and oppression of the press,” she observed.

Many challenges faced by the Maldivian media were common to countries shaking off the vestiges of authoritarian regimes, she noted.

“A pattern I’ve definitely noticed in newly emerging democracies is that media retains the old style of attending press conferences and spitting out what was said, without doing their critical analysis. When you attempt to be objective it doesn’t mean your sources will always like you, and there may be backlash.”

Even in the West the media faced a lot of criticism, Rath said, “particularly for bias”.

In the UK journalism was the third least respected profession, and in the US it was second last, “right behind lawyers”, she pointed out.

Escaping powerbrokers

For media in an emerging democracy to develop beyond a partisan press and become independent, free from a legacy of political powerbrokers, it must evolve as a business, Rath explained.

“Advertisers do care about politics, but more often they care about money,” she said, “and at least in the US, that means they care only about circulation.

“If you have partisan media, one of the issues you have is that your market is really limited – you’re preaching to the choir. The other audience isn’t going to listen to you. But if you are impartial, there are broader sources of funding purely based on business value. If a news organisation emerges with a real and strong reputation for independence, and strives for objectivity, I do think the advertising dollars will follow, simply because of readership and audience reach.”

Rath said that while she respected the concept of media that was openly partisan and did not strive for impartiality, a trait common to a lot of media in Europe if not the US and UK, “I think it can be damaging in many ways because the credibility of the media is so important. If you don’t even aim for objectivity your market is going to remain very small, and the media is going to be credible only with the party members you are aiming towards.”

Initally, she said, this meant independent media needed a source of funding – an investment – “because it is about money for news organisations. It is important to have a source of funding, whether this is an individual or an advertising base, that cares more about independent media in principle, or who cares purely about money and so would be willing to invest in an independent media outlet that had a lot of potential for growth.”

Another step was ensuring that journalists had an organisation independent of their own newsrooms, such as a professional association, “dedicated entirely to good journalistic practice.”

“I think journalists need a place to meet. One thing I am concerned about in the Maldives is that the political polarisation may also have affected the journalists themselves. The Maldives is very small and everyone feels affected by politics, and has a personal connection to politics.

“I think it is really important for journalists from different news organisations to meet and discuss journalistic issues together. It’s also important to discuss ethics and professional standards, and to debate amongst yourselves what kind of media you want to have. And at the end of the day, if the media comes under attack, they will need to come together and defend themselves.”

The Maldives had a free press, Rath observed, and now it had to fight for respect – “a widespread challenge for anyone trying to fight for ethical journalism.”

“You’ve got a free press. Now how are you going to establish that press, how are you going to build its credibility, and what kind of values do you want it to have? You can technically do whatever you want – but a free press means having responsibility.”

Not as simple

Accepting that responsibility was not as simple as just reporting objectivity, Rath said.

“The model of objective and unbiased journalism has been rightly criticised because of the angle a news station takes on a story. It’s not necessarily bias, it’s part of news judgement, and it’s a huge debate across the industry,” she explained.

“But especially in a new or emerging democracy where there is a lot of political polarisation, it is very important to strive for objectivity to build the credibility of news organisations and to practice these traditional values of journalism, rather than to just be completely caught up in political debate.”

Journalists themselves could push towards more proactive journalism, rather than reacting to press releases and statements by political figures, Rath noted.

“I’m a big proponent of enterprise journalism, where you notice trends, talk to sources and do a feature on it – issues based journalism.

“I’d like to see that in the Maldives, but are there enough bodies? And enough money? It’s still small industry – journalists are assigned to small stories, and when you’re doing 1-3 stories a day you don’t have time to write up a great feature or do non-reactive news because you have to follow events going on around the country. But it’s a huge opportunity in the market.”

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Prison officers trained in human rights

Seventeen Maafushi prison officers have completed a human rights training programme designed to increase their awareness of the Constitution and the rights guaranteed by it.

The “Human Rights and Constitution Training for Prison Staff” was a project organised by the UNDP in conjunction with relevant state organisations.

UNDP Resident Coordinator Andrew Cox told graduates at the closing ceremony held in Maafushi today that their training would help ensure that prisons are “not just a dead end” but another step towards rehabilitation and reform of prisoners.

The training provided to prison officers was also a further achievement in ensuring that rights guaranteed under Article 2 of the Constitution are integrated throughout the entire judicial process.

Minister of Home Affairs Mohamed Shihab told the gathering that such training was essential for those engaged in such a high-pressure and high-risk profession as that of the prison officers. There have been occasions, he noted, when the repercussions of rapid decisions taken by prison officers working under pressure had been felt nation wide.

Addressing the ceremony on behalf of all participants, Trainee Prison Officer Abdul Qadir Ibrahim said the training had made them all aware that “the Constitution is as essential to life as water”.

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Maldives democracy sparked vicious political struggle

The establishment of a multi-party democracy in the Indian Ocean archipelago in 2008 ended a 30-year period of authoritarian rule under President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, writes New Delhi journalist Vishal Arora for Global Politician, but it started a vicious political struggle depriving the Maldivians of any sense of relief.

“Six months after former activist Mohamed Nasheed won the October 2008 presidential election, Gayoom’s Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) and its allies got a simple majority in the parliamentary election. When two rival parties became almost equally powerful, the clash was inevitable.

The tussle between the ruling coalition led by President Nasheed’s Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) and the conservative DRP and its ally People’s Alliance (PA) peaked in June 2010 when the education minister Dr. Mustahafa Luthfee’s planned to make Islam and national language Dhivehi optional in school curricula for senior students.

The Gayoom regime homogenised Sunni Islam by restricting people’s religious and cultural rights – the South Asian island nation claims to have a 100 percent Muslim population like in Saudi Arabia. Nasheed, on the other hand, is seen as a liberal Muslim.

The other bone of contention was the government’s move to privatise the Malé International Airport, which was a source of income for some opposition legislators.

In response, the opposition moved a bill in the parliament to amend the Public Finance Act to resist further privatisation of state property, and brought in a no-confidence motion against the education minister.

However, on June 29, President Nasheed’s cabinet resigned en masse alleging inability to carry out its constitutional duties. The government also arrested some opposition legislators – including the leader of the PA and Gayoom’s half-brother, Abdulla Yameen – on charges of bribing lawmakers to vote against the government in the parliament. The arrests led to violent street protests in which several people were injured.”

Read more

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Man found dead in apparent suicide on Velidhoo

Police have reported death of a 24 year-old man from Velidhoo in Noonu Atoll, after he was discovered hanged from ceiling fan in his room at 12:35pm yesterday.

An official from the island office told Minivan News that the man was discovered by his father.

“He lived a very normal life and worked in his brother’s restaurant on the island,” the official said.

”According to what most of the islanders are saying, he had this problem with his girlfriend’s father; he had not been accepted by him. He lived together on the island with his girlfriend from Male’ and they were about to get married, but her Dad sent a letter to the court saying he would not give the consent for the marriage to take place.”

Deputy Minister for Health Mariya Ali said the Maldives lacked a comprehensive mental health system, and that the number of psychiatrists in the country was inadequate.

“Normally a person with a serious mental condition will be assessed and taken to ‘Guraidhoo’ (a mental health rehabilitation centre) until their psychotic episode is over,” Mariya said. “But after being discharged, the aftercare is not very strong and patients may stop taking their prescriptions. Their condition can deteriorate and they can relapse.”

Furthermore, Mariya said that it was very likely that the country’s high rate of child sex abuse was leading to a high prevalence of mental health disorders in later life, such as post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety problems, but that there was little general awareness of mental health issues in Maldivian society.

The Maldives also lacks the equivalent of a ‘Samaritans’ helpline, common in many developed countries, offering counselling and advice for people coping with depression or suicidal thoughts.

”The former government developed a draft mental health care policy with the assistance of the World Health Organisation (WHO), but it was never implemented,” Mariya noted. “We are now revising this policy and after that we should have an idea of what a mental health response system should look like.”

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