Tag: maldives news

Prison conditions “unchanged since Gayoom’s time”: detained blogger

Amnesty International has welcomed the release from prison of Maldivian blogger and journalist Ismail ‘Khilath’ Rasheed last Friday, whom the organisation had designated a ‘prisoner of conscience’, but expressed alarm at the government’s failure to prosecute his attackers.

Rasheed was jailed for 24 days in Male’ Custodial following his participation in a ‘silent protest’ on December 10, 2011, International Human Rights Day, calling for religious tolerance.

During the protest at the Artificial Beach he was attacked by several men armed with stones, and was hospitalised with head injuries. He was subsequently arrested on December 14.

“While the release of Ismail Khilath Rasheed is a welcome development, the fact that his attackers have not been investigated points to a serious failure of the government to end impunity for human rights abuses in the country,” said Abbas Faiz, Amnesty International’s Maldives researcher.

“Instead of defending his right to advocate religious tolerance, the government locked Ismail Khilath Rasheed up and have done nothing to bring his attackers to justice – thereby sending a message to the public that crushing a peaceful demonstration is acceptable,” he said.

Amnesty observed that radical religious groups in the Maldives were advocating that “only Sunni Islam is allowed under the constitution”, noting that opposition politicians had sided with these groups “in a political campaign against the President”.

“It is time for the Maldives government to bring to justice all perpetrators of human rights abuses – past and present – including those who attack religious minorities. The first step in this process should be to carry out an independent, impartial and effective investigation of those who used violence against Ismail Khilath Rasheed and other demonstrators on 10 December,” Amnesty declared.

In November 2011 Rasheed’s blog, www.hilath.com, was blocked by the Communications Authority of the Maldives (CAM) on the order of the Ministry of Islamic Affairs, on the grounds that it contained “anti-Islamic” material.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has also issued a statement on Rasheed’s release, but expressed concern about the ongoing blocking of his blog on the order of the Ministry of Islamic Affairs.

“The journalist’s unlawful detention is a reminder that it is impossible to establish a totally free press so long as the government subjects itself to religious extremism, as displayed by the Islamic Affairs Ministry,” RSF said.

“Religion is becoming a taboo subject in the Maldives and media workers are under threat of imprisonment every time it is debated.”

“Just like Gayoom’s time”

Despite the Maldives’ international stand on human rights issues, the prisons “remain unchanged since Gayoom’s time”, Rasheed told Minivan News, following his release.

During the police investigation of his involvement with the protest, the blogger was locked for three weeks in a small, three-sided room with 11 other people. Despite the opening there was no airflow, the room was unventilated and the fan in the room was broken, Rasheed said.

The room was so small and crowded it was impossible for 12 people to fully stretch out and sleep properly, and despite provisions requiring inmates be allowed out for at least an hour’s exercise every day, no one was allowed outside during his detention, Rasheed said.

Inmates had to summon the duty officer to be taken to the toilet, which did not flush. There was no shower, and inmates washed themselves by filling a bucket at the water basin, which was also used to flush the toilet. Inmates in other cells with attached toilets were not allowed out at all.

The prisoners had no bedding apart from a small pillow, and slept on the tiles. Every three days they were given a small amount of detergent to wash the floor of the cell.

Rasheed said that the Prosecutor General (PG)’s office visited once during his detention and observed that prisoners were not being properly treated.

“There were no medical facilities, or means of treating heroin addicts going into withdrawal. One of my cellmates had a [withdrawal] fit and we had to put a slipper in his mouth [to stop him swallowing his tongue],” Rasheed said. “I held his hand.”

Most of the cell’s occupants were awaiting prosecution for drug offences, muggings, theft, and for carrying weapons.

“People had been in there for three months and were very frustrated, and were venting that frustration against the government. The Constitution sets limits to people’s detention, but people are in limbo. One guy accused of murder has been in there for 1.5 years, and still his case has not been sent to the PG’s office for prosecution,” Rasheed said.

The blogger was presented to the court following the expiration of the first 24 hour detention period.

“The investigating officer stated that I was the organiser of the protest and should be detained as I was disrupting the religious unity of the Maldives, and was a threat to society,” Rasheed said.

Police also presented Ali Ahsan to the court, developer of the December 23 protest website which had briefly published slogans calling for the murder of “those against Islam”.

Police argued that Ahsan’s release “could endanger Maldivian religious unity and even threaten life” and requested the court grant a 15-day extension of his detention.

Ahsan’s lawyers however argued that the slogans had been uploaded by hackers, and the website developer was released. Rasheed’s detention was extended by 10 days.

After 10 days in custody, Rasheed was again presented to the court.

“The investigating officer told the judge he had reason to believe I had no religion at all, and that I was promoting gay rights, and therefore my case could be concluded only after the Islamic Ministry provided me with counseling to bring me back to Islam,” said Rasheed, who self-identifies as a Sufi Muslim.

The magistrate extended Rasheed’s detention a further 15 days.

On Friday January 6, two days before he was due to be released, Rasheed was told that his case had been sent to the Prosecutor General’s office and that he was free to go.

“The day I was released a different investigating officer said I had been put in prison for my own protection – the same thing my family had been told. He said they had intelligence suggesting that a gang of brainwashed extremists were out to kill me and anybody identified as associated with the protest.”

Rasheed said he now fears for his safety and is unwilling to walk around Male’.

“The majority of Maldivians are not violent people. But I am concerned about a few psychotic elements who believe they will go to heaven if they kill me – people who don’t care if they go to jail for it. Those people I am afraid of, and I will not provoke the country in the future.”

Rasheed’s blog remains blocked, but he says he is unwilling to risk his own safety by resuming blogging anyway.

“The [silent protesters] made their point, which was in no way anti-Islamic,” he said. “Their point was: the majority of people want to eat apples, but a minority want to eat oranges. We said we have no problem with anyone eating apples, but let us eat oranges.

“We said nothing about trying to get people to leave Islam. Everyone should be able to think and practice and follow what they feel personally, and Islam teaches tolerance. Extremists twist this around, and equate it with apostasy – and call for those who leave Islam to be killed.”

Rasheed said he felt that the majority of Maldivians disagreed with extremism, and were generally “a very laid-back, moderate people who want a peaceful life. They are concerned about disruption to families and society, rather than other religions or beliefs.”

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Audit report finds discrepancies in Economic Development Ministry finances

An audit report of the Ministry of Economic Development for 2010 released this week found large discrepancies between the ministry’s internal records and the general ledger kept by the Ministry of Finance and Treasury.

The report noted that the Economic Development Ministry did not “identify and reconcile” discrepancies of over Rf6 million (US$389,105) in income and Rf8 million (US$518,806) in expenditure between its accounts and the finance ministry ledger.

In a recurring finding of audits of state institutions for 2010 recently completed by the Auditor General’s Office, the report noted that the ministry did not compile its financial statement in accordance with ‘International Public Sector Accounting Standards’ (IPSAS) as stipulated by regulations under the Public Finance Act, and as a result lacked important information such as detailed “disclosure notes”.

The annual financial statement did not specify how Rf1 million (US$63,850) allocated for the trade representative in Geneva was spent, the report stated.

With the exception of five main issues identified for reform, the audit report found that the ministry’s expenditures were “for the most part in accordance with state financial regulations and for projects specified in the budget.”

Among the recommendations were: comply with IPSAS for future financial statements; issue receipts for all cash collections; obtain quotations from at least three parties for procurement ranging between Rf1000 and Rf25,000, invite bids for purchases above the limit and ensure that an employee signs for goods and services; improve inventory and stock maintenance and account for a lost laptop; ensure expenditures are made under the appropriate budget code.

In other findings, the report noted that renovation work on the ministry’s new offices went over budget by Rf179,629 as a result of poor planning and insufficient instruction to the carpenter chosen for the work. Moreover, the same carpenter was employed for the additional work without a public announcement to seek quotations from other parties.

The report also recommended depositing fees and other income collected by the ministry to the state’s consolidated revenue fund in lieu of sending the cash to the Maldives Inland Revenue Authority (MIRA), which incurs a high cost, takes up employees’ time and risks loss of the money during transfer, the report stated.

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Police arrest man for death threats against judge

Police have arrested a man for making death threats against a judge who ruled against the construction of a concrete slipway on Villingili in Gaaf Alif Atoll, reports Haveeru.

The case case filed by the island council against Irumathee-aage Shuhoodh Ahmed for building the slipway without authorisation. The court ruled against Shuhoodh and ordered him to halt construction.

Shuhoodh reportedly made the threats against the judge as he was leaving the court.

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TMA cabin crewman dead after colliding with seaplane propeller

A 20 year-old cabin crew member with TransMaldivian Airways (TMA) has died after colliding with the propeller of a seaplane at Conrad Rangali Island resort.

The police identified the victim as Ismail Hamdoon Mahmood of Fehifarudhaage, Maduvaree in Neemu Atoll.

Police confirmed that a team had been dispatched to the resort to investigate the incident.

Conrad Maldives issued a statement confirming that the incident occurred early Tuesday evening in the resort’s lagoon.

“It is with deep regret that we confirm the death of that crew member.  No one else was injured in this incident.  This has been a tremendous shock, and Conrad Maldives Rangali Resort extends its deepest condolences to the family. This matter is now being handled by the appropriate authorities,” the statement read.

In a statement, TMA’s Managing Director Edward Alsford said that Hamdhoon had “accidentally walked into the line the moving propeller and was subsequently struck and died.”

“TMA have infomed the family and is liaising with the relevant authorities. At the time of the incident the aircraft had no passengers aboard as the crew had moored the aircraft for overnight parking.”

Local media Sun Online reported a source from resort as saying that it was raining at the time and Mahmood had slipped and collided with the propeller while walking on the platform, and fell into the lagoon. His body was retrieved from the water by resort staff and is currently being kept at the resort clinic, Sun reported.

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‘Gold-digger clause’ bans Maldivian women from marrying foreigners who earn less than US$1000 pm

The Family Court has published regulations requiring that foreign men applying to marry Maldivian women must earn at least Rf15,000 (US$972) per month.

“We have been acting on this for a while. This has attracted public attention only because we announced the regulations this year,” said Ahmed Abdullah, Marriage Registrar at the Family Court.

The regulation stipulates that a foreigner has to earn at least Rf15,000 and submit written proof of his salary if he is employed by the government, or submit six months of bank account statements if he is working in the private sector.

Abdullah explained that this applies only to foreign men and not to foreign women wishing to marry locals, “as it is the man who has to support his wife.”

“It is mostly women who are victims when a mixed marriage like this goes wrong,” Abdullah said.

Maldivian men do not have to earn the minimum amount to get married: “A local man has a home or a family to turn to, whereas if you are a foreigner you have to rent a place so we have taken that into account when drafting the regulations.”

The court has heard cases in which the foreign man has walked away with the local woman’s money and jewelry, he said.

“When a man does not earn enough he will be desperate, and some men marry local women for ease of life. We had a case where a local woman came out of her shower to find her jewellery missing, and later that her Bangladeshi husband had fled the country with it.”

Abdullah says that even when marriages take place abroad between a foreign man and a local woman, it was often the woman who came in to register the marriage.

“We have cases where the woman comes in for the registration, does not have supporting documents, and when we ask the foreign man to come he does not turn up. A man can easily walk away from a marriage,” he said.

To counter this, the regulation for registering marriages abroad also states that if the marriage takes place in a country that has a Maldivian embassy, the embassy has to stamp a document stating that the marriage was conducted by a person or group that has been authorised by the host country to conduct Muslim marriages: “This way there is additional supporting document by a government authority.”

The regulations also specify that based on “certain factors” the marriage registrar can give permission for those under 18 to get married.

“This also has been practised for a while. In very rare cases we have allowed those under 18 to get married,” Abdullah said.

The marriage registrar has the authority to grant permission for those under the legal age of 18 to marry, after taking into consideration factors such as their physical and mental health, police records, and the view of the guardians or parents.

“We will get a medical doctor’s opinion on the physical health of those concerned, and we ask for police reports so that the person and parents in question can make an informed decision,” Abdullah explained.

The reason why a person under 18 wanted to get married is also taken into consideration.

“If they say they are in love, that is not necessarily a good reason to grant the marriage, as children in Grade 6 and 7 also think they are in love sometimes,” he said. “They have to be in a position to realise what marriage is.”

Abdullah would not say what a good reason was, stating only that “we will take it case by case and this is something we grant rarely.”

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Salaf calls for Anti-Sorcery Act

Local religious NGO Jamiyyathul Salaf has asked the authorities to enact legislation to make sorcery or black magic illegal in Maldives.

During a religious program broadcasted live on local radio SunFM last night, Salaf President Sheikh Abdullah Bin Mohamed said the Anti-Sorcery Act is required to “protect the people from evils of sorcery”, and prosecute suspected sorcerers.

He requested President Mohamed Nasheed submit an Anti-Sorcery bill to make the practice illegal, while calling on the parliamentarians to pass the bill.

Minivan News could not reach him at the time of press.

According to Salaf’s website, Mohamed urged the authorities to stipulate the death penalty in the law for convicted sorcerers.

Sheikh Mohamed’s remarks came following the brutal stabbing of 76 year-old Ali Hassan, on Kudahuvadhoo in Dhaalu atoll, which has been blamed on sorcery.

Mohamed was quoted in local newspaper Haveeru as claiming that many Maldivians have become victims of sorcery, and it has “ruined families”.

“Sorcery has become a social plague in the Maldives,” Mohamed contended, “which needs to be cured”.

Sorcery was a grave sin in Islam for which Islamic Sharia stipulates death penalty, he explained.

Saudi Arabia continues to use the death penalty for sorcery, while the last person to be judicially executed in the Maldives, Hakim Didi, was executed by firing squad in 1953 after being found guilty of conspiracy to murder using black magic.

Didi’s daughter, Dhondidi, was also sentenced in 1993 for performing sorcery on behalf of the former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom’s brother-in-law Ilyas Ibrahim, in his bid to win the 1993 presidential election.

Sorcery, known locally as Sihuru or Fanditha, is said to widely practiced on many islands in the Maldives, while related reports have surfaced in the media time to time.

Islanders from Kudahuvadhoo has been quoted in the media alleging that the murder victim was a sorcerer.

The victim had previously been accused of using sorcery on a 37 year-old woman, who was reported missing at 2:00am on December 4, 2011 and whose body was found floating in Kudahuvadhoo lagoon later that morning.

However, Hassan’s family denies the claims that he was a sorcerer, and alleged he had received death threats from another family on the island.

The incident has however sparked “fear of sorcery” among the island’s 3000 inhabitants, and some islanders “do not even come out of the house after dark”, according to the source.

In 2009, parents on the island of Maamendhoo in Laamu atoll accused an islander of practicing sorcery on school girls to induce fainting spells and hysteria, which led to a police investigation.

Meanwhile last year the Islamic Foundation of the Maldives (IFM) conducted a certificate level course on incantations, teaching the participants “spiritual healing” and how to cure diseases using “incantation”.

President of the Islamic Foundation, Ibrahim Fauzee, told Minivan News at the time that the main reason why the organisation decided to conduct the courses on spiritual healing was that many people in the islands had become victims of black magic performed by their enemies.

“Sometimes people have lost their lives [to black magic], and sometimes people perform the black arts to ruin the life or family of others. Many do not know how to cure this,’’ Fauzee claimed.

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Maldivian fishing crew arrested on sodomy charges

A Maldivian fishing crew including five men and a minor have been arrested on charges of sodomy.

According to a police media official, the men were arrested on Saturday following reports that they were committing acts of sexual misconduct on the boat.

“We summoned the boat to dock at Villingilli in Gaaf Alif Atoll on Saturday while they were out fishing. They were all arrested upon their return and are now kept under Villigilli police station custody,” the official said.

As the investigation is ongoing, the official declined to reveal the identity of the crew and where the boat is from. “All we can confirm is that they are all Maldivian and one is a minor,” the official added.

According to a report on Raajje TV, the captain of the yellow fin tuna fishing dhoni filmed the five crew members in the act and reported it to police.

Under the 1968 penal code, homosexuality is punishable by either a fine, up to ten years in jail, banishment for 9-12 months or 10-30 lashes.

In 2009 a group of seven men, including an imam, were arrested on Maalhos in Alif Alif Atoll Maalhos after photos and videos emerged of the seven engaged in homosexual activity.

Besides the imam, the pornographic videos featured a mosque caretaker, a carpenter and another man the islanders claimed was mentally unstable. Three of the suspects were married with children, while another was a second, retired imam.

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European decline could stall tourism in 2013: MATI

As the economies of America and the European Union (EU) become more vulnerable in the coming years, the Maldives tourism industry will see a decline in business, the Maldives Association of Tourism Industry (MATI) has predicted.

Maldives Association of Tourism Industry (MATI) yesterday claimed that decline in European traffic to the Maldives was due to economic stability in that region.

MATI Secretary General ‘Sim’ Ibrahim Mohamed pointed out that total tourist arrivals has not declined; in 2011, the Maldives set a new record of nearly one million.

“Occupancy rates in resorts have gone up following the arrival of Chinese tourists,” Sim told local media. “But the number of tourists arriving from Europe and other western countries has declined and we are threatened by the economic instability that Europe is experiencing.”

Maldives Inland Revenue Authority (MIRA) has lately released data indicating that tourism comprised a majority of state revenue in 2011. The State Budget for 2012 was created on this assumption, and leans heavily on expected revenue from tourism in the coming year.

Although the tourism industry has recovered impressively from devastating Boxing Day tsunami of 2004, Sim predicted progress would stall mid-2013 due to “global economic changes as economies of countries like America and the European Union become more unstable and vulnerable.”

However, the Maldives promises to remain atop its niche market of small island tourism. While Mauritius and the Seychelles are leading competitors, Sim affirmed that within the small island niche “we are unbeatable, and I believe it will stay that way.”

According to Simon Hawkins of the Maldives Marketing and PR Corporation (MMPRC), close correlation between a tourism industry’s marketing and arrivals is a strong indicator of success.

In 2011, Hawkins said, the Maldives destination board spent US$2 million on marketing and received close to one million tourists.

Comparatively, Mauritius spent US$13 million and received one million tourists.

“We’re six-and-a-half times more cost effective than Mauritius, and 30 times more cost effective than Indonesia,” said Hawkins. “We are batting very much above our weight, but that’s because the product is brilliant.”

Sim added that the Maldives product did not need to be reinvented during the European recession to suit the growing Asian market.

“Chinese tourists are like any Western tourist,” he explained. “When the Russians began coming to the Maldives they had some different expectations, but now they are used to what we offer. The Chinese will be the same.”

In 2011, Chinese tourists comprised a majority of total arrivals. However Minivan understands from conversations with resorts managers that while they come in high numbers they are not generally high spenders – while resorts make a bulk of their revenue from the bars, restaurants and spas, officials have noted that Chinese tourists’ primary expenditures are on board and transportation.

Minivan News inquired whether the 2013 presidential election would impact tourism.

“Political parties have matured, and the people have matured. They are accepting democracy,” Sim said. “2013 will be much better than when we started our multi-party system in 2008.

“Democracy is not a beauty pageant, it has ups and downs and hustle and bustle, and I think people understand that,” he observed.

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MPL sacks three over duty-high bags

Maldives Ports Limited (MPL) has sacked three employees who had smuggled out high-duty plastic bags from Male’s commercial harbour.

The black plastic bags in question were recently levied a 400 percent duty, to encourage carriers to opt for environmentally-friendly alternatives.

MPL CEO Hussein Hilmy was quoted as saying that the act was likely assisted by “outside help” who had made “offers” to the employees, and that MPL company would not tolerate corruption.

According to Haveeru, the three employees had tried to alter the settings on a computerised system which regulates port traffic.

Assistant Clearance Officers Mohamed Ahmed and Ahmed Afraad, and Assistant Data Processing Officer Ashiya Mohamed were dismissed from their posts, reports Haveeru.

Two individuals have been arrested over the matter.

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