The Maldives national football drew its first game 1-1 with Nepal on Friday at the SAFF Championship in New Delhi, India.
Captain Ali Ashfaq gave the Maldives the lead just before half-time with a powerful left-footed shot from 25 yards while Sandeep Rai levelled the score with a header at the near post from a Nepalese corner after the restart.
The other game in group B between Pakistan and Bangladesh ended in a scoreless draw.
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(0)The Maldivian government’s reaction to the fallout from the UN Human Rights Commissioner’s address to the Majlis is deeply disappointing. It largely confirms what many increasingly allege: the change President Nasheed and MDP promised was limited to regime change and does not include a genuine commitment to democratic reform.
Navi Pillay called on Maldivians to consider putting a moratorium on the practice of flogging. She did not say Maldivians who believe in Islam should abandon their faith. She pointed out that the Maldivian State is one of the few among followers of Islam that still engages in the practice of flogging, imposed disproportionately on women.
Her fundamental proposition was: why not be as compassionate as your faith allows instead of being as cruel as it gives you room to be? Her suggestion was that we discuss and debate among ourselves to find this path to compassion. The official government response to this was, shockingly, ‘You can’t argue with God.’
The Islamic Ministry’s condemnation of Pillay’s speech, and its criticism of MPs for ‘allowing’ Pillay to address the parliament are hardly unexpected. At the helm of the Ministry is Dr Abdul Majid Bari who, while having no qualms about pocketing money earned from his stake in the alcohol-guzzling pork-eating infidel tourism industry, presents himself as an ultra-pious conservative when it comes to affairs of the Maldivian public.
This deep-rooted hypocrisy is what allows a man who holds a doctorate in the interpretation of the Qur’an to mislead the Maldivian public into thinking that multiple interpretations of Shari’a and hadith are unequivocally un-Islamic and that debate is beyond the Islamic pale.
The view of Dr Bari and other ‘Islamic scholars’ such as Dr Afrashim Ali (the ex-singer who treats the subject of his doctoral exegesis as a state secret) is neither new nor uncommon.
Had they taken the time to put it to the public in a coherent manner it would read: in view of the fact that there are specific offences and sanctions prescribed in the primary sources of Islamic jurisprudence, the Qur’an and Sunna, there is no justification for suspending regulation specifically outlined in these divine sources.
This is the view of most conservative proponents of the Shari’a, and is obviously the one held by Dr Bari and others leading the charge of the flogging brigade. It is, however, by no means the only view on the subject within Islamic thought and jurisprudence.
Rather, there are a great variety of ‘Muslim voices’ offering different views—conservative, liberal and pragmatic—about whether and how the idea of human rights and Islamic normative requirements fit together.
Diverse ‘Muslim voices’ on human rights
Even before the modern era, Islamic law was characterised by a broad jurisprudential diversity based on geographic, ethnic and racial as well as philosophical grounds.
This is evident from the fact that it was 400 years after the death of Prophet Mohammed that ijthihad—reasoned interpretation of the sources of Islamic law—was brought to an end with the increased petrification of the Shari’a by medieval jurists.
Many liberal Muslim reformers thus demand the recovery of ijthihad in order to do justice both to modern needs and to the original spirit of the Shari’a. They emphasise the Shari’a’s original meaning as a ‘path’ or a guide, rather than a detailed legal code.
These liberal Muslim voices do not attempt to deny the binding character of Shari’a. What they ask for is active reasoning, ijthihad, which was originally regarded as an independent source of Islamic law.
Their view, as expressed by Lebanese philosopher Subhi Mahmasani is, ‘The door of ijthihad should be thrown wide open for anyone juristically qualified. The error, all the error, lies in blind imitation and restraint of thought.’
Critical approaches of liberal Muslims such as Mahmasani, Egyptian judge Muhammad Said al-Ashmawy and Abdullahi Ahmed An-Nai’m have often highlighted the humane character of the Qur’anic revelation, which is the most important source of the Shari’a.
Tunisian scholar Mohamed Talbi has argued, for example, that ‘Were it possible for us to ensure a life of justice and equality in a different way [to corporal punishment], this would certainly be a way pointing in the same direction as the Qur’an does.’
Although Shari’a had continued to be the predominant legal system in matters pertaining to family law, from the 19th century onwards, Islamic criminal justice had gradually retreated from public law.
The introduction of Islamic criminal law through legislation is thus a relatively recent phenomenon that emerged in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Libya enacted Islamic criminal laws in 1972-1974, Pakistan did so in 1979, Iran in 1982 and Sudan in 1983 and 1991.
And, despite the enactment of such laws, there has been a strong tendency within most Islamic societies to restrict the applicability of hadd punishments as much as possible.
In Pakistan, for instance, the Federal Shari’a Court resisted the reintroduction of stoning in the early 1980s by repeatedly refusing to apply this form of punishment. Prime Minister Zia ul-Haq replaced some of the judges with his own allies to finally have stoning judicially confirmed as being in accordance with Shar’ia.
What these arguments, incidents and discussions suggest is that reconciliatory mediation between tradition and modernity seems conceivable not only among those who are consciously liberal but also among conservative Muslims, as has been argued by many academics.
In light of the rich Islamic jurisprudence referred to above, it is hard to see what the Islamic Ministry’s statement ‘No Muslim has the right to advocate against flogging for fornication’ is intended to do. Except, of course, to shut the Maldivian public off from any other teachings and characteristics of Islam other than those held by Dr Bari and the Islamists who rule Maldivian thought today.
Yellow: the colour of cowardice?
The deafening silence of any opponents of Dr Bari and other Islamists’ extremist views is inexplicable.
Does this mean that among the Muslim scholars that this country now has in such multitudes, there is not one person who disagrees with the extremists’ position? Does it mean, as the recent Religious Unity Regulations suggest, that Maldives will only consider as legitimate Muslim scholars those who purport a particular fundamentalist view of Islam?
Is there not one member of the Maldivian judiciary, the legal community at large, the legislature, or civil society capable of espousing a different position? Does the Human Rights Commission of the Maldives agree that the UN Human Rights Commissioner is wrong? If not, why not say so? Where are you all hiding? What are you afraid of?
Foreign Minister Ahmed Naseem’s statement that there is ‘nothing to debate’ is ‘singularly counter-productive’. It makes President Nasheed’s same-day appeal for gender equality ring hollow, like many of his other statements that emphasise democracy and human dignity.
We may never know details of the Faustian pact President Nasheed and MDP have made with Dr Bari and other proponents of extreme Islamism. What we do know is that it is costing the Maldivian people their democratic, and religious, right to intellectual debate and growth.
No matter how far above rising sea levels it is capable of lifting us, or how much it can lift our colossal debt burden, it is not worth keeping in power a government that lacks the courage to raise Maldivians above the quagmire of ignorance the Islamists are sinking us into at such a rapid pace.
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]
(1)Dislikes(0)The Maldives has risen slightly to rank 134 in Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI).
The country scored 2.5 on a scale of 0 (highly corrupt) to 10 (very clean), placing it alongside Lebanon, Pakistan and Sierra Leone.
The score however is a mild improvement on 2010, when the Maldives was ranked 143th and below Zimbabwe. The Maldives still rated as having higher perceived corruption than many regional neighbours, including Sri Lanka (86), Bangladesh (120) and India (95).
Project Director of Transparency Maldives, Aiman Rasheed, warned that the ranking could not be compared year-to-year, especially in the Maldives where there were only a three sources used to determine the index (India has six).
“Corruption in the Maldives is grand corruption, unlike neighbouring countries where much of it is petty corruption,” Rasheed said. “In the Maldives there is corruption across the judiciary, parliament and members of the executive, all of it interlinked, and a systemic failure of the systems in place to address this. That why we score so low.”
Faced with such endemic and high-level corruption, it was “up to the people of the Maldives to demand better governance”, he said.
Addressing corruption would have political ramifications for the 2013 presidential election, Rasheed agreed, especially for young voters – 40 percent of the population is aged 15-24, resulting in thousands of new youth voters every year.
“Young people are hugely disillusioned by corruption in the Maldives. They have a vision of the type of country they would like to live in,” he said.
New Zealand, Denmark and Finland ranked as having the least perceived corruption, while North Korea, Somalia, Afghanistan and Burma ranked last.
(0)Dislikes(0)A coalition of religious NGOs have claimed that 100,000 people will join a protest in December “to protect Islam”, and called on “all Maldivians to take part”.
Speaking to the press at the Maldives National Broadcasting Corporation (MNBC) studio, President of the NGO Coalition Mohamed Didi said that more than 127 local NGOs, music clubs, political parties and Island Councils would take part in the protest on December 23.
According to MNBC, Didi said the protest was not a movement against the government but a movement “against all un-Islamic ideas.”
Opposition Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) Deputy Leader Ibrahim ‘Mavota’ Shareef warned that “our faith will not be shaken by something someone says, but because of these things it might turn the non-muslims living in neighboring countries against us.’’
MNBC reported that the People’s Alliance Party (PA) had called on parents to bring children to the gathering.
Local newspaper Sun quoted Didi as saying that the government had been conducting many activities with the motive of erasing Islam from the country, and claimed that the NGO coalition was “left with no other choice but to protest to protect Islam.”
Senior officials from the Adhaalath Party, Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM), Dhivehi Qaumee Party (DQP) and Jumhoree Party (JP) were present at today’s meeting.
Claims that national monuments placed in Addu for the SAARC Summit were idolatrous and hostility towards a call by UN Human Rights Ambassador Navi Pillay for a national debate on flogging sparked protests in Male’ recently.
“This practice constitutes one of the most inhumane and degrading forms of violence against women, and should have no place in the legal framework of a democratic country,” Pillay said, referring to the practice of flogging a punishment for fornication.
Press Secretary for the President Mohamed Zuhair did not respond to Minivan News at time of press.
(0)Dislikes(0)The Auditor General has published an audit report on the Kumundhoo Harbor Project that was contracted to Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) Chairperson ‘Reeko’ Moosa Manik’s Heavy Load company by the Housing Ministry.
The Auditor General in his report noted that the work was assigned to Heavy Load in violation of article 8.25 of the State Finance Regulation.
‘’Article 8.25 of the Finance Regulation states that any work that costs more than Rf1.5 million (US$100,000) should be assigned to a party by the Tender Evaluation Board in an open bid, and that the interested parties should submit details of the work,’’ Auditor General said in the report. ‘’But the Kumundhoo Harbor Project was not assigned to the party accordingly.’’
According to the report, the project that was supposed to be finished in six months was finished in 31 months, and the government had to pay Rf 22.2 Million for a project originally budgeted at Rf 10.3 million project.
The project was assigned to Heavy Load on 21 November 2007, but the physical work of the project was started on 10 March 2008, according to the audit report.
While the project was going on, Heavy Load reported to the government that there were hard areas that excavators could not dig and the work came to a halt. The ministry then inspected the area and found that the area required explosives to continue the project.
‘’It is to be noted that hard areas can be identified with a diving inspection and that this type of inspection was not done before the work started,’’ the Auditor General said in the report.
The Auditor General’s report said that Rf 4.7 million (US$307,000) was paid to Heavy Load for the days they had to wait without work in return for keeping their equipment and staff on the island, adding that all the days that the party was paid for ‘Idle Time’ could not be considered as such because there was other work the contractor could have been completing.
Heavy Load was paid different rates for the time the company had to wait without work, the Auditor General’s report said. The ministry’s determined rate was Rf23845.77 based on the total amount of the project.
‘’But for the 49 days the contractor had to wait without work from 12 June 2008 to 30 July 2008, Heavy Load was paid Rf27,197.80 per day and for the days between 19 September 2008 and 18 October 2008 the contractor was paid Rf24,299.33,’’ the Audit Report said, adding that the contractor received extra Rf 177,856.17 in total.
The Auditor General also noted that the contractor was given an extra 195 days to complete the project after failing to complete it by the original due date, but after the 195 days only 45 percent of the work was completed.
According to the ‘Appendix to Tender’ agreement made between the ministry and contractor, if the contractor failed to complete the project in the time allocated, the contractor was to be fined 0.1 percent of the total cost of the project for each day.
‘’But after the contractor failed to finish the project, it was given extra five months without any fines,’’ the Audit Report noted. ‘’While the government had paid the contractor Rf 4.7 Million to recover any losses contractor might suffer for idle time, the contractor was not fined for the days the project was delayed due to the contractor’s negligence. The government had not cited the loss for the government and islanders of Kumundhoo, and all the benefit was given to the contractor.’’
The Auditor General also noted that an advance payment was paid to the contractor in violation to the Finance Regulation.
‘’The Finance Regulation article 8.23 states that the highest amount that can be paid in advance is 15 percent of the total cost of the project, but the contractor was paid Rf 5 Million which is 38 percent of the total cost of the project,’’ the Audit Report noted.
The Auditor General’s report said that the Auditor General’s Office did not receive the ‘Defects Liabilities Inspection Report’ done by the ministry.
The contractor was told many times to correct issues and not to continue work without correcting them, but the contractor had not acted as instructed and finished the harbor and handed it to the ministry, and the ministry had fully paid the contractor, the Auditor General noted.
The report also noted that the harbor was completed with a lot of faults, and that huge damages had been caused to some boats that had entered the harbor.
Minivan News attempted to contact Reeko Moosa for comment, but his phone was switched off at time of press.
(0)Dislikes(0)“We want every existing member to recruit one more member,” the party’s parliamentary group leader, Ibrahim Solih, told Minivan News.
The launch of the campaign signaled that the party was gearing up for the 2013 Presidential Campaign, he acknowledged. Two officials from the UK Conservative Party had recently visited the Maldives to offer advice in the running of the campaign, he said.
MDP MP ‘Reeko’ Moosa Manik told local media that the party would try to reach 50,000 members by January, and said that the information gathered during the door-to-door campaign would help the party prepare for the 2013 election.
“We’ll re-visit every island, every house in the Maldives within the coming two months,” Moosa said.
Former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom’s new party, the Progressive Party of the Maldives (PPM), has meanwhile claimed to have more than doubled its membership in recent months from 9,000 to 20,000 members.
After months of factional strife and a litany of grievances aired in the media, Gayoom withdrew his endorsement of Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) Leader Ahmed Thasmeen Ali in March this year, accusing his successor of “acting dictatorially” and violating the party’s charter in the controversial dismissal of Deputy Leader Umar Naseer.
The formation of the PPM as distinct from the larger opposition Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) will split the opposition vote, making MDP unlikely to be threatened in the first round of the presidential election. However the party needs to achieve 51 percent of the vote to avoid a run-off, which would likely see MDP standing alone against a hastily-formed alliance of opposition parties and embittered former coalition partners such as the Jumhoree and Adhaalath parties.
DRP Deputy Leader Ibrahim Shareef observed to Minivan News in October that “given current trends”, the 2013 presidential election had the potential to be a replay of the 2008 election in which Nasheed won power in a run-off election against the incumbent Gayoom, due to the (short-term) support of coalition partners.
Faced with a run-off, the disparate opposition groups would temporarily unify over the common ground of ousting the MDP, Shareef predicted, giving power to the largest opposition party.
“Look at the last three elections. In the first round of the 2008 Presidential election Gayoom got 40 percent, while the rest of the then opposition got 60 percent. In the second round the opposition totaled 54 percent. The MDP lost ground in the parliamentary elections, and the majority of the islands voted for the DRP in the local council elections,” he claimed.
“The incumbent government has the resources of the state to get votes, and can get at least 20-30 percent just by being in power. At present trends, 2013 will be a replay of 2008, and as things stand now, whoever is in opposition will go to the second round.”
To avoid a close fight in the second round, the MDP faces the challenge of attracting enough supporters to the polls in the first round to reach the 51 percent needed for an outright win.
This may mean appealing to the youth as much as the established membership base. The UN’s population report this year indicated that 40 percent of the population are aged 15-24, meaning a large number of young people are becoming eligible to vote every year.
Young people were a core demographic for the MDP in the 2008 presidential election, but since then there has been an anecdotal trend of growing political disenfranchisement, spreading distaste for the ‘he said, she said, go-nowhere’ flavour of Maldivian politics, and frustration at ongoing social issues such as high youth unemployment and lack of educational opportunities.
As such, the MDP’s key opponent in 2013 is as likely to be voter apathy as it is any opposition party.
(0)Dislikes(0)Male’ City Council member Ahmed Falah has denied media reports today that the council has decided to put up sign boards banning immodest dressing to discourage tourists from wearing bikinis on beaches and other public areas in the capital.
Local newspaper Haveeru reported Male’ City Council member Ibrahim Shujau as telling the paper that the council had received complaints from the public that tourists had been wearing improper clothing around the capital’s beach. He reportedly said the council met with the Tourism Ministry and decided to put up sign board to inform tourists that improper clothing was not allowed.
However, Falah today said that the council has not made any such decision.
‘’I am sure that the council has not decided anything like that,’’ Falah said. ‘’Media reports are incorrect.’’
Speaking to Minivan News earlier this year, Secretary General of the Maldives Association of Tourism Industry (MATI), ‘Sim’ Mohamed Ibrahim acknowledged that such occurrences would be a challenge for the mid-market tourism ambitions of the Maldives.
“The way it is currently structured is that alcohol is banned and there is a dress code for inhabited islands. Unless the regulations are changed – and I’m not saying they should be relaxed – tourist areas will need to be separated from local areas. In Male’ people cannot drink alcohol openly and nobody wears bikinis – it isn’t a problem.”
Ibrahim suggested that unless there were demarcated tourist areas, “there will always be these kinds of issues. It’s not an Adhaalath party issue or necessarily a religious issue – Western tourist dress is very different from traditional Maldivian dress.”
In April this year The Criminal Court sentenced a man to six months imprisonment after he was found guilty of ‘skinny dipping’ (swimming naked) in the Artificial Beach in Male’.
(0)Dislikes(0)Diva Maldives are rebranding their resorts ‘Lux*’ – Latin for ‘light’ – in what the company claims is a complete overhaul of the Maldivian resort experience.
Speaking at a press conference this morning on the roof of Traders Hotel in Male’, the resort’s General Manager Dominik Ruhl outlined its concerted campaign to differentiate itself.
“The problem is that a lot of hotels here in the Maldives look and feel the same, and development of the industry has been quite slow,” he observed. “Look at any brochure: All resorts have sun, sea, sand and a spa, and a cold towel on arrival. How does a resort set itself apart in a ‘sea of sameness’?”
The five star market in the Maldives was “saturated”, he noted, “and not much is happening.”
“Resorts tended to define themselves in terms of the hardware,, which we all have – villas, pools architecture. They are all fairly similar – but people don’t come to the Maldives to sleep in a 1950s boudoiur. We don’t want to follow the same thoughtless patterns we learned in hotel school 20 years ago.
“We realised that as a resort we are helping people to celebrate life. It might be a honeymoon or a family trips, but visits to the Maldives are usually a celebration.”
In what must have been a highly eclectic planning meeting, Diva’s staff sat down and brainstormed an array of unique and quirky resort features for guests to discover for themselves across the island.
Ice cream carts with homemade low fat ice cream will trundle around the island, fitness instructors will drag guests out of the gym for outdoor exercises, guests will be taught traditional bodu beru drumming, and a red phone box outside reception will let them make free phone calls to anywhere in the world.
Guests will be given a Moleskin journal on arrival to sketch and write down ideas during their stay, “and there will be lots of quirky things for people to find around the island during their stay.”
Air-conditioned spaces will be deemphasised in favour of open areas with hammocks and beanbags, and while heavy “old world” wines will still be sold, the resort will introduce affordable lighter wines under its own label, ‘Scrucap’.
The resort has even imported an entire coffee roasting machine, with the intention of grinding and roasting beans its own beans on the island and serving them from a coffee shop in the lobby complete with newspapers and Kindles.
Ruhl noted that the resort was so proud of its new coffee that it had launched an entire ad campaign around it, instead of blandly continuing to market the sunny beaches.
On the environmental side, the resort will begin desalinating its own water to avoid having to dispose of 170,000 plastic bottles a year.
“I can’t pretend we have zero carbon emissions – we go through 6000-7000 litres of diesel a day,” Ruhl noted. “But we are offsetting this with a company called Carbon Footprint while we look at wind and solar, to improve our energy efficiency.”
Lux* Maldives will join Naiade Resorts’ other properties in the Indian Ocean which are also being rebranded. The company has several hotels in Mauritus and one in the Réunion Islands.
(0)Dislikes(0)Deputy Speaker Ahmed Nazim cancelled today’s sitting of parliament after 40 minutes stating that MPs “deliberately” left the chamber to force a loss of quorum.
After ringing the quorum bell and waiting five minutes when the number of MPs in attendance fell below the 20 needed for a quorum, Nazim said quorum was lost because MPs intentionally left the chamber.
“Since MPs do not want the sitting to go ahead I have decided to end today’s sitting now,” he announced at 9.42am.
Today’s sitting was called off shortly before preliminary debate was due to commence on a resolution proposed by Jumhooree Party MP Ahmed Moosa regarding the leasing of uninhabited islands in Lhaviyani atoll.
Prior to the presentation of the resolution by the Kurendhoo MP, Education Minister Shifa Mohamed answered queries from MPs for thirty minutes during the Minister’s Question Time, usually the first order of business for parliament sittings.
Since the beginning of the final session of the year in October, parliament was deadlocked for three weeks over a dispute concerning the right of convicted MP Ismail Abdul Hameed to attend sittings until the Supreme Court ruled on his appeal of the Criminal Court verdict.
While the past three sittings were adjourned before time due to loss of quorum after the 12.30 break, a total of 11 sittings out of the 18 held so far were disrupted and cancelled for lack of quroum, with some sittings lasting less than two hours.
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