Tag: maldives

Nasheed to appear in dock: Telegraph

Nearly eight months after he was toppled as leader of the Indian Ocean archipelago, Mr Nasheed is due to appear in the dock over accusations that he abused his power by ordering the arrest of a senior judge during his tenure, reports the UK’s Telegraph newspaper.

The arrest fuelled already simmering anti-government protests which culminated in a police mutiny in February and led to Mr Nasheed’s deputy being installed as president.

The climate change campaigner, who was tortured during previous stints in jail for his political activism, insists that he was threatened by armed rebel officers and forced to announce his resignation on television.

“The judiciary in the Maldives is so deeply politicised, there is no chance of a fair trial, particularly in a case as political as this,” he said.

The 45-year-old became leader after the Maldives held their first democratic elections in 2008 following three decades of autocratic rule by Maumoon Abdul Gayoom.

A conviction could see Mr Nasheed handed a jail term of up to three years in prison or banishment to an small islet, a move that would disqualify him from running for office.

The case centres around Mr Nasheed’s decision in January to send the military to arrest the head of the country’s criminal court Abdullah Mohamed on charges of corruption, misconduct and favouring then-opposition figures.

Mr Nasheed justified the arrest saying that the judicial service commission had failed to take action against the judge, who had a string of allegations against him.

Apart from the criminal case, Mr Nasheed now faces two defamation suits filed against him by Police Commissioner Abdulla Riyaz and by Defence Minister Mohamed Nazim.

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Juvenile Court acquits minor charged with murder of 65 year-old Hassan Abubakur

The Juvenile Court has ruled that there was not enough evidence submitted to the court to convict a minor charged with the murder of Hassan Abubakur, and has closed the case.

An official from the Juvenile Court today confirmed to Minivan News that the court has acquitted one minor charged with the murder of Abubakur.

‘’The case was based on a confession he [the minor] made during the police investigation. The state had not produced any witness or evidence after he denied the charges in the court,’’ the Juvenile Court official said. ‘’When the case was presented the DNA was also produced but it did not match with the boy.’’

Officials at the Juvenile Court have confirmed this to the local media as well. Hearings conducted at the Juvenile Court are closed for the public and the media as the court only presides over cases concerning minors.

According to newspaper ‘Haveeru’ there was no evidence against the minor except for his confession he made at the police while he was under investigation. But he later denied the charges at the court.

On May 30 this year, 65 year-old Hassan Abubakur was found murdered inside his own house at about 6:00pm that day on the island of Manafaru in Noonu Atoll.

In June police arrested two men and a minor in connection with the murder. The two men were aged 26 and 27 while the minor was 17.

In July the police concluded the investigation into the case and forwarded it to the Prosecutor General.

Head of Maafaru Island Health Centre Ali Shareef said according to rumours, the man had received a large amount of cash in a lump sum through the elderly persons’ pension scheme, as he had not received it for a long time.

The assailants may have killed him in an effort to steal the money, Shareef speculated at the time.

The elderly man’s legs were tied and a pillow was on his face when his body was found, Shareef said, according to islanders who witnessed the body.

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Judicial statistics show 90 percent of those convicted for fornication are female

Almost 90 percent of the people found guilty of “Zina” – fornication – and sentenced to flogging in 2011 were female, according to new statistics published by the Department of Judicial Administration last week.

A total of 129 fornication cases were filed last year and 104 people sentenced, out of which 93 were female. This includes 10 underage girls (below 18), 79 women between age 18-40 and and four women above 40 years.

Of the 11 males who were sentenced, only one was a minor, with the others aged between 25-40.

Compared to 2010, the overall sentences in fornication increased by 23 percent in 2011, but the number of males sentenced for flogging decreased by 15 percent while the women increased by 30 percent.

According to Maldivian law, a person found guilty of fornication is subjected to 100 lashes and sentenced to one year of house arrest or banishment while a minor’s flogging is postponed until she or he reaches 18.

It takes four witnesses or a confession to prove the offence in court based on Islamic Sharia. The Maldives’ legal system consists of elements of both common law and Sharia.

Earlier this year, the Maldives made international headlines when a 16 year-old girl was sentenced to 100 lashes and eight months house arrest by Hulhudhufaaru Magistrate Court in Raa Atoll, for fornication while the 29 year-old man  was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment after finding him guilty of sexually abusing the girl.

Being a minor, the court stated that the girl’s sentence would be implemented when she turned 18.

After visiting the country in November last year, UN Human Rights Chief Navi Pillay called for a moratorium on corporal punishment, describing it as “inhumane and degrading.”

“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,” said Pillay.

However, her statements and calls for discussion on the issue were met with outrage from the opposition and religious Adhaalath party, giving rise to protests and demonstrations. The Foreign Ministry itself dismissed the calls for discussion on the issue, stating: “There is nothing to debate about in a matter clearly stated in the religion of Islam. No one can argue with God.”

Minivan News could not verify if all the people sentenced last year had been flogged at the time of the report’s release, although former Former Minister of Gender and Family Aneesa Ahmed confirmed that the sentences were being carried out.

The Judicial Sector Statistics Report 2011 highlights the sheer scale of the long-known and unaddressed issues of gender bias in the justice system.

A 2004 UNICEF study titled “Gender issues in the Maldives Criminal Justice System” raised serious concerns over cases of ‘Zina’ – both consensual and non-consensual alike.

As rape was at the time and is still defined as “forced fornication”, as with any other fornication case, four witnesses or a confession is still required by the court to prove rape.

“In these cases a woman’s accusations need to be verified by two men or four women, thus, rape and sexual violence remain impossible to prove in virtually all cases,” the 2004 study noted.

The prosecutor general’s office had earlier confirmed that as these two necessary elements are almost impossible to find, in all rape cases the suspects are charged with forced sexual misconduct, which carries a lesser punishment.

However if the victim is a minor, the PG says that such cases are tried under the 2009 Act on Stipulating Strict Punishment for Child Abusers.

This is the major reason why no rape cases were found in the new statistics revealed by the judiciary despite the high number of reported rape cases. It is also likely that rapes involving minors have fallen into the category of child abuse while others have been categorised under forced sexual misconduct.

However, its also noteworthy that in 2010, eight men were convicted for forced sexual misconduct but the following year the sentenced decreased by 50 percent. Out of the men charged with forced sexual misconduct in 2011, six walked free while only four were sentenced.

The 2004 study further added at the time the current law establishes a minimum age limit of 18 for a person to receive adult punishments, but one of the three exceptions is “if the woman has had a child.”

The Judicial report 2011 says that 10 females were convicted for “giving birth outside a wedlock”, including a minor – a criminal offense which explicitly is directed at women and carries a sentence of maximum one to two years house arrest.

The UNICEF study explained that the current law allows for a young woman under the age of 18, who has been a victim of sexual abuse and is consequently pregnant, to receive lashings in a public setting.

“The victim must then endure the pain and public humiliation of her situation, both the illegitimate pregnancy and the public lashings, which have significant ramifications for her subsequent life opportunities. The perpetrator, on the other hand, is likely to remain publicly unidentified.” it noted.

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Participaton key focus of provocative National Gallery exhibition

Societal challenges in addressing the prevalence of child abuse within the Maldives was the central theme of a one-day contemporary art exhibition held at the National Art Gallery in Male’ on Saturday.

Ismail Asif, who coordinated the exhibition along with a number of fellow local artists, said each installation aimed to focus on fears of how “common” child abuse had become within the Maldives, partly as a result of an unwillingness to discuss and tackle the matter within society.

“[The exhibition] is about trying to break taboos, it really is a challenge to discuss these matters.  The system has so many flaws we wanted to depict; these are flaws within the education system, the judicial system and wider society,” he said.

Despite the difficult subject matter, organisers claimed that after three weeks of work, the exhibition, which ran from 4:00pm to 6:00pm, aimed to encourage participation from members of the public to try and encourage discussion about child abuse.

Asif talked about the exhibition’s wider themes, without trying to play down the provocative nature of the installations.

“We very much wanted to focus on participation, normally when it comes to trying to address child abuse as an issue, people will just have a poster or banners they can look at concerning the problem.  We wanted to try and give more a sense of looking through the eyes of the victims,” he said.

The exhibition itself combined installations involving a sculpture of a female figure holding up a toilet, depicting what Asif claimed was the discrepancy between national perceptions of the  traditional status of local women and their treatment within real life.

Among perhaps the more outré installations on display at the yesterday’s exhibition was a specially-constructed walkway that required members of the public upon entry to pass through a small passageway with artificial hands attached to either side of the exhibit.

Asif said that the exhibit was used to open the event to try and reflect themes concerning harassment of vulnerable young people.

Scale of the problem

In recent years, local authorities and NGOs have released a number of findings trying to detail the extent of child abuse and wider sexual assaults within society.

The state-run Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital’s (IGMH’s) Family Protection Unit reported in 2010 that the centre was notified of 42 cases of rape between 2005-2010. Most of these cases were found to involve minors.

According to the Human Rights Commission of the Maldives, 13 rape cases were reported last year alone, the majority of which most were gang rapes or assaults involving minors.

Almost one in seven children of secondary school age in the Maldives have been sexually abused at some time in their lives, according to an unpublished 2009 study on violence against minors.

Rates of sexual abuse for girls are almost twice as high than for boys at 20 percent – one in five girls have been sexually abused – while the figure for boys was 11 percent. Girls are particularly at risk in the capital Male’, the report found.

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11,528 ‘concerned Maldivians’ asked CMAG for justice prior to Friday’s meeting

At Friday’s meeting of the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) a petition was presented to the group’s ministers said to be representing “a group of concerned Maldivians” unaffiliated to any one political party.

The petition was signed by 11,528 Maldivians between September 18-24, who called upon CMAG to provide them with justice.

“The events of 6-7 February have however dashed all the hopes of the people that henceforth governments will change by free and fair elections,” read the letter.

“We are very disappointed…that the Commission of Inquiry found the transfer of power legal, and warranted to reinstate the power of the former dictatorship, which was ousted in the first democratic elections of 2008,” it continued.

“We plead that if Ministers are not in a position now to give us justice, at least to refrain from delivering us injustice. We hope that Ministers will give careful consideration to the reservations that have been expressed about the methods of work by the Commission.”

“We hope Ministers will not abandon the people of Maldives, and be with us until the genuine voice of the people are heard in a free and fair election,” it said.

The eventual outcome of the CMAG meeting saw the Maldives’ suspension from the group lifted, whilst it still remains on the group’s ‘matters of interest’.

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Maldives world’s most vulnerable country to climate-change related impacts on food security

The Maldives is the world’s most vulnerable country to the food-security related impacts of climate change, a new report has found.

According to ‘Ocean-Based Food Security Threatened in a High CO2 World’, produced by global ocean protection NGO Oceana, the Maldives ranks alongside Togo and Comoros as the most vulnerable to climate-change related food security threats, due to its near total reliance on fish for protein.

The rankings were calculated by combining each nation’s exposure to climate change and ocean acidification, dependence on and consumption of fish and seafood, and level of adaptive capacity based on socioeconomic factors.

“Many of the high-ranking nations based on climate change indicators are located in the tropics and low latitudes,” the report notes.

“This reflects the general trend that fish species are predicted to be migrating toward the poles as water temperatures continue to rise. Tropical countries are the most dependent on coral reef fisheries which are severely threatened.

“Island and coastal nations depend more heavily on fish for protein, especially the poorest nations, increasing their vulnerability. Many of the poorest places are already struggling with hunger issues which will be made worse with high population growth rates and limited additional options for food.”

Half the protein consumed in the Maldives is derived from fish, the report observed, and besides providing direct food protein, countries such as the Maldives also benefited from marine tourism jobs associated with coral reefs and marine life.

“This multi-billion dollar industry could also be threatened by climate change. Therefore, further assessments should incorporate the risks to food security that come from losses in income due to the disappearance of fisheries and tourism related jobs. Local changes to marine resources from ocean acidification and climate change could ripple up through the global economy,” the report found.

‘So long and thanks for all the fish’

Minivan News has earlier reported on the decline of the fishing industry in the Maldives due to an array of factors, notably high-tech and efficient purse seiner vessels from other nations ringing the country’s exclusive economic zone. The traditional – and sustainable – pole and line method used by Maldivian fishermen has left them unable to compete with GPS enabled, sonar-equipped fish aggregation devices of these vessels.

Local fisheries have also been affected by market impacts, particularly the move by major fisheries companies in the Maldives to ship tuna to Thailand for canning and processing despite the presence of local factories – many tins sold locally in shops now have ‘packed in Thailand’ on the label.

Former head of the Maldives Industrial Fisheries Company (MIFCO), Adhil Saleem, previously informed Minivan News that changing sea surface temperatures due to climate change were also driving fish deeper, reducing the stocks within reach of the traditional pole and line method.

“Our [pole and line] method only works near the surface,” he said. “But with changes in weather and sea temperature, fish will not surface.”

According to figures from the Maldives Monetary Authority (MMA), tuna fishing is the second largest export earner at US$52 million and the country’s largest employer at 40 percent, but in the last three years contributed only 2 percent of the country’s GDP, dwarfed by the tourism industry. Catches meanwhile declined eight percent in 2011.

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Custom seize two men carrying books about Christianity

Customs officials at the Male’ Ibrahim Nasir International Airport (INIA) on Thursday seized 11 books about Christianity, typed in Dhivehi, from a Bangladeshi expatriate who came to the Maldives via Sri Lanka.

Speaking with the press last Thursday inside the Customs Building, Chief Customs Officer Ahmed Samah identified the Bangladeshi expat as Jathish Bisvas, 44.

Samah said the 44 year-old man had arrived to the Maldives on a  tourist visa and that it was the first time he visited Maldives.

According to Samah, customs officials were suspicious that the expat who had tried to bring the banned items into Maldives had links with a person in Male’. Samah said the Bangladeshi man had made a booking with a hotel in Male’ but did could not identify which hotel it was.

Samah said later the same day a Maldivian national was caught with similar books, after arriving to the Maldives from Sri Lanka.

The books he brought were not typed in Dhivehi, according to Samah.

Furthermore, Samah said it was highly possible that a Maldivian was behind the illegal smuggling operation given the quality of the Dhivehi language used to type the book. He also said it was a “very serious case if a Maldivian is behind this.”

He told the press that it was difficult to identify or provide further details about the suspected Maldivian man.

The pair have been handed over to police and customs and police are conducting a joint investigation into the case.

According to the Maldives Religious Unity Regulations, it is illegal in the Maldives to propagate any faith other than Islam or to engage in any effort to convert anyone to any religion other than Islam. It is also illegal to display in public any symbols or slogans belonging to any religion other than Islam, or creating interest in such articles.

It is also illegal in the Maldives to carry or display in public books on religions (other than Islam) and books and writings that promote and propagate other religions, and the translation into Dhivehi language such books and writings on other religions.

Violation of the Religious Unity Act is subject to two to five years in prison and fines up to MVR 20,000 (US$1300).

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Case against Nasheed for defamation of Police Commissioner postponed indefinitely

Former President Mohamed Nasheed’s legal team on Sunday stated they had not been officially informed by the civil court of the rescheduling of the defamation case filed by Commissioner of Police Abdulla Riyaz against Nasheed.

A member of Nasheed’s legal team, Hisaan Hussain, said they had seen local news reports that the hearing had been postponed on Riyaz’s request, but had not been officially informed. Hussain said they had no information as to when the hearing had been rescheduled to.

“The procedure is that the person who filed the case has to request for postponement at least one hour before the hearing. We don’t know when Riyaz sent in the request, we saw it in the news around 11:15pm,” Hassan said.

In addition to this, the legal team noted that they had so far not received details of the case and were not aware which action or words of Nasheed had prompted Riyaz to file the defamation case against him.

“We haven’t had any official word as to why the case has been filed. Again, through local media we have heard it was because Nasheed had called Riyaz a ‘baaghee’ (traitor). What we have heard through official means is only that it is a case for defamation, and that Riyaz wants compensation for a loss that this alleged defamation has caused him,” Hassan said.

Another member of the legal team, former Minister of Youth and Sports Hassan Latheef, pointed out that while Riyaz had filed the defamation case in the civil court, the police were continuously arresting people for calling them ‘baaghee’ (traitor) on the streets, and that the criminal court was continuing to provide extensions of detention periods for people arrested under the charges.

“The articles in the penal code against defamation has been removed. Defamation is now considered a civil offence, and yet police continue to arrest people for expressing their opinions on the police force under what can only be perceived as charges of defamation,” Latheef said.

A second  case regarding similar defamation allegations against Defence Minister Mohamed Nazim is also pending.

Hassan added that they believed the police were arresting people under the directives coming from the Commissioner of Police. Emphasizing the contradiction, Hassan further said, “We believe this is something Riyaz needs to answer to the people for. This is because people are continuing to be arrested, jailed and charged for the matter. The Police Commissioner needs to make up his mind whether he perceives defamation as a civil or criminal offence.”

In response to a question posed by Minivan News, Latheef said that Nasheed would respect the decisions reached by the National Executive Council (NEC) of the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), referring to the NEC’s decision to not abide by court orders until the changes proposed by international community are brought to the Maldivian judicial system.

“Since President Nasheed is MDP’s presidential candidate, he accepts that a decision by the NEC is one that he, too, would wish to abide by in principle. The NEC, after much consideration, came to that decision. Hence President Nasheed believes that he will act in accordance with it,” Latheef said.

The legal team stated that Nasheed would decide whether or not to attend the hearing once he is officially notified of the rescheduling by the civil court.

MDP International Spokesperson Hamid Abdul Ghafoor told Minivan News today that the MDP would go ahead with the scheduled trip to the atolls, although the Hulhumale’ Magistrate Court has placed Nasheed under island arrest with regard to a case against him for the arrest of Criminal Court Chief Judge Abdulla Mohamed.

“We will be leaving tomorrow for the southern campaign. We will not budge,” he said.

Minivan News tried contacting Commissioner of Police Abdulla Riyaz, but he was not responding to calls.

Maldives Police Services Media Official Sub Inspector Hassan Haneef was also not responding to calls.

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Island President “a depressing reminder of world’s vested interests”: Jon Shenk

Filming primarily during the former president’s first year in office, Director of the Island President Jon Shenk and his team trailed him around the globe, filming everything from the underwater cabinet meetings – where Nasheed conducted with ministers all wearing scuba gear to highlight the problems of rising water levels – to his trip to the UN, Westminster and Copenhagen’s Environment Summit to beseech Western diplomats to act quickly in the name of global environmental protection, writes Caroline Frost for the Huffington Post.

Shenk had different problems from those of Nasheed, but equal challenges:

“I think he had an amazing amount of trust, but we quickly learned that there’s a reason why a film about this state’s leader had never been made before. It’s just so difficult to get access to everything, whether it’s cabinet meetings, or family life, and then it becomes 1000 times more difficult once you leave that country, and you’re dealing bilaterally with other leaders, other heads of state, it was pretty much a constant battle.”

Unfortunately, Shenk stopped filming shortly before Nasheed was ousted from office in a coup orchestrated by the tyrannous regime his government had replaced. As events raced ahead of him, Shenk added an end card to his film so viewers were kept updated:

“The film ended on a high with him still president, then by the film was released in cinemas in the US and UK, the coup had happened, and it changes the way that the film affects people.

“In a way, the film is completely unchanged by events because so much about his first year in office and the drama of him fighting that struggle at Copenhagen, but in other ways, it’s a depressing reminder of the vested interests that exist in the world, in keeping things the way they are, money interests controlling the day, even in countries where there is a strong independent national propensity to move towards democracy.”

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