Fifty couples, more than three times the daily average, are planning to get married on Sunday the 10 October 2010, reports Haveeru.
The binary number 10-10-10 prompted many to lodge applications at the Family Court to have their marriage ceremony performed on the day. The Family Court approved 50 applications, and told Haveeru that it will try and accommodate all requests.
On average 15-20 marriages are performed daily. On dates that are easy to remember – and leave little chance of forgetting the anniversary – the average always increases manifold. 87 couples got married on 08-08-08, 56 on 07-07-07 and 63 on 06-06-06, says Haveeru.
Adopting proven sources of renewable energy such as wind and solar will reduce both the price of electricity in the Maldives and cut down on price fluctuations caused by the expensive importation of fossil fuels, claims Danny Kennedy.
He would know. The former Greenpeace campaigner turned solar power entrepreneur is riding a surge of interest in the renewable technology, spurred by economic rather than environmental imperatives.
“The solar industry grew 40 percent during the recession,” he tells Minivan News.
“The average price in the US is now US$0.24 a kilowatt, which makes solar power already a third cheaper than grid electricity in the Maldives.”
The Australian environmental campaigner ran Greenpeace campaigns across the Pacific in places such as Papa New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Fiji, prior to moving to the United States and founding Sungevity, the residential solar company that is now the third largest such provider in the country after just a few years in operation.
Kennedy is in town to oversee the pro-bono installation of 48 photovoltaic (PV) modules on the roof of Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed’s house, ‘Muleaage’, which convert solar radiation into direct current electricity using photovoltaic semiconductors.
Nasheed has already agreed to personally help install the units, which Kennedy expects will save the country US$300,000 in electricity over the 25-year warrantied lifespan of the units.
Sungevity calculated the solar production potential of Nasheed’s roof from its office in Oakland California, using aerial images from Microsoft’s mapping software.
The method uses a fiendishly clever piece of trigonometry developed by a young student from Sydney Grammar School in Australia, that takes the altitude of the photographing plane from the image’s metadata then uses trigonometry to calculate the angle and direction of the potential customer’s roof, and then plugs in known quantities such as the area’s solar potential and price of electricity.
The result is that customers can determine the amount of electricity the unit will generate and potential savings, over the internet, “with plus or minus one percent margin of error. That’s better than sending a kid onto the roof with a tape measure, which introduces human error.”
The schoolboy’s innovation stunned the Redmond heavyweight sent over to Sungevity from Microsoft to see how the software worked, who told Kennedy that the company couldn’t have done such a thing “with 300 of our own engineers.”
Installing the units on Nasheed’s roof is now the last phase of the operation.
“We installed the rails today, and we’ll install the PV modules over the next few days. There are still some conduits to install to the generating room, and some carpentry to do,” Kennedy explains.
As the President’s house is connected to the grid in Male’, the solar cells will feed electricity back into the grid and help power the city when Nasheed is not running the air conditioning or using the microwave.
“My sense is that he’s trying to do something symbolic and make a statement about solutions to climate change,” Kennedy said. “He seems to be trying to lead by example.”
Founder of Sungevity Danny Kennedy suggests the Maldives can develop and export its expertise in renewable energy
The light stuff
The driving force behind solar power is now economic, says Kennedy.
While the capital expenditure for a small unit runs to US$30,000, installations in countries like the US are heavily incentivised and banks are increasingly offering ‘solar financing’ so customers can avoid the upfront hit.
“Solar is now about saving money,” Kennedy says. “The US and Australia give cashback on solar installations, while in the EU the model is a feed-in tariff. In Germany the model pays 40 euro cents per kilowatt hour, so if you install a solar system with a 20 year lifespan, you can sit back and let the thing turn a profit.”
As a result, “Germany‘s projected installation this year is 7000 megawatts – by comparison, Male’s powerplant generates 38.76 megawatts.”
The UK is not far behind Germany, with a proposed 31 pence feed-in tariff: “The UK solar market is going to go gangbusters in the next few years,” Kennedy says.
Feed-in tariffs are the fastest way to promote quick adoption of the technology, Kennedy explains, but incentive models – cashback and feed-in tariffs – “take on the vested interests involved in fossil fuels.”
“The Maldives can move to clean fuel, hedging against fuel price rises while taking on the vested interests of incumbent technology,” Kennedy suggests.
The flat and predictable cost of solar power contrasts with that of fossil fuels, he says, which are expensive for a country like the Maldives to import, subject to price flucutations, and vulnerable to Middle Eastern instability.
“While a small system may cost up to $30,000, it will pay itself back tenfold over its lifespan. It’s a safe and predictable return on investment,” he says.
In the US at least, the price of grid electricity is rising by seven percent per annum, Kennedy explains. The cost of solar units is meanwhile plummeting as production of the devices, led by China, skyrockets.
“Every doubling in production of PV modules represents an 18 percent reduction in price,” Kennedy explains.
“The Chinese have noticed this are increasing production massively, and have doubled production twice in the last three years. There has been a 50 percent drop in price in the last 18 months.”
A country like the Maldives with comparatively low energy requirements has the potential to meet much of its energy demands through a combination of solar, wind and wet (tidal) renewable energy generation, Kennedy suggests, as well as create a great many jobs in the sector.
And if the German experience is anything to go by, that expertise is soon going to be in high demand across the world.
“German companies like Bosch said early on that they are going to become better at this that anyone else, and manage the IP (intellectual property). Now, it’s German engineering staff who are running the Chinese production lines.”
The Maldives could develop its own expertise, Kennedy suggests: “the challenges of powering an isolated island in the Maldives are similar to those of a town in the Australian outback,” he notes.
Kennedy sees the future of power generation as working rather like the internet, running as a grid with many small generators feeding into the system rather than the centralised production and distribution of power.
“I’m not a great advocate of large-scale power plant development, solar or otherwise,” Kennedy says. “It risks replicating the mistakes of the past – it’s a Faustian bargain you make, as with Edison: ‘Give us lights in the streets and we’ll give you a regulated monopoly.’”
Because of the pollution profile, plants are also located further from population centres and up to 30 percent of electricity generated is lost in transmission.
“There are new high-voltage DC lines becoming available but uptake is not substantial,” Kennedy says, predicting a future where power generation is controlled by the consumer and with less wasteful transmission.
“Who pays for that bit in lost in the middle?” he asks: “The public purse.”
With 50 percent of the world’s solar installations in Germany, weather is no longer as great a limiting factor of solar technology either, Kennedy says.
The principle obstacle has rather been one of “political will” – which Nasheed will demonstrate when he clambers onto his roof over the next few days to poses for photos with his new PV cells. Clearly a publicity stunt – but nonetheless a bright idea.
Imposing the death penalty, following Shari’a, and harsher prison conditions are the best way forward for solving the increasing violence in Maldivian society, several MPs have stated.
Fares-Maathodaa MP Ibrahim Muththalib said the major problem faced by society today is the decision of the criminal justice system to ignore Shari’a. “We cast aside the Shari’a and adopted man-made sentencing laws”, he said, making today’s violent society possible.
“Instead of being put to death, murderers are allowed to languish in prisons, given the opportunity to get married and to procreate. We cannot stop the violence without stopping such practices. We cannot stop such problems without a death for death policy”, Muththalib told the Majlis.
“I believe that if you impose the death sentence on just two people in this country, there will no longer be anyone left who will kill. If you amputate the hands of two people in this country, there will be no more thieves left. We have to think about how we can establish these principles of Islam”, Muththalib said.
The debate began after an emergency motion tabled by Hoarafushi MP Ahmed Rasheed on Monday to discuss the violent murder of 81-year-old business man, Hussein Manik, on September 27 in Hoarafushi.
“Those who kill should be killed”, Rasheed said, introducing the motion. “We should amend our penal system to ensure that those who endanger the lives of others would be held in solitary confinement for life, and are never eligible for parole”, Rasheed told the Majlis.
If the murderers of Mohamed, or “any criminals of the sort” should ever return to Hoarafushi, he said, he would personally lead a campaign to provide justice to the people of the island. “I will not hesitate, even if it means that I personally get entangled in the law.”
Madaveli MP Mohamed Nazim agreed that the death penalty, as in the Shari’a, was the answer. “Islam is unequivocal that the penalty for death should be death”. The current violence in the country is a consequence of ignoring or violating the teachings of Islam, he said.
“Otherwise, had we maintained the principle of death for death the murderer would not be there to kill again, or to encourage others to kill. The problems we are confronting today is a consequence of ignoring this principle, which would have set an example for the Ummah and the nation’, he said.
Nazim also said there is no need to amend the country’s murder laws, as the death penalty already exists. “I do not see anything in the penal code that says the penalty for murder should be changed to 25 years imprisonment”.
Nazim said that unless and until the death penalty is imposed, as it is stated in the current penal code, the escalating violence in the Maldives could not be stopped.
Thoddoo MP Ali Waheed attributed the increase in violent crime to the lack of proper prisons. “People who should be behind bars are sitting around on the beaches, sucking on butts and all sorts of things – this is the result”, he said.
Drugs, agreed several MPs, were the main cause for the increase in violence in the Maldives. “We know that sometimes people can get intoxicated to such an extent that they become unaware of their own actions. Sometimes murder can be committed,” said Vilifushi area MP Riyaz Rasheed.
MPs themselves should set a good example, and allegations of intoxicating substances being found in their places of residence or their vehicles are not helping matters, Riyaz Rasheed said.
“Pictures of official delegations abroad show them drinking some sort of a yellow liquid”, he said. Unless such ways are amended, there would be no solution to the social problems of the Maldives today, Riyaz Rasheed said.
Maavashu member Abdul Azeez Jamal Abubakr suggested that religious scholars can make the most important contribution to the problems in society. Perjury, he said, is a major problem in Maldivian courts.
The gravity of such an act, as stated in Islam, should be made clear. “It is incumbent upon religious scholars to relay the ominous penalties that await such actions in Islam”, he said.
Religious NGO Jamiyyathulsalaf has called for the resignation of Education Minister Dr Musthafa Luthfy, and claimed that Arabiyya is the only Maldivian school “with an adequate education policy.”
“The whole education policy of the Maldives has been designed in a way that moves the students further from the religion,” President of Salaf Sheikh Abdulla Bin Mohamed Ibrahim said today.
“As a consequence, students have become poorly educated. If you refer to the results of the students who pass, anyone will understand that.”
Sheikh Abdulla said there was only one school in the Maldives that has an adequate educational policy.
“That school would be Arabiyya School. The School teaches Arab, Hadith, Sunnah of the prophet and the Quran,” Sheikh Abdulla said.
Sheikh Abdulla said the idea of introducing co-educational policy was completely unacceptable.
“There will be social and disciplinary issues that students would have to face if the policy was introduced,” he said. “There will also be consequences for teachers.”
He also warned that “a coalition of NGOs” was preparing to be on standby to come out and demonstrate against the change, if necessary.
Minister of Education Dr Musthafa Luthfy told Minivan News that co-education has been a part of the Maldivian education system for a long time.
“When we studied at ‘Edhuruge’ [traditional places of learning, where classes were held at a teacher’s house] there were girls and boys mixed,” said Dr Musthafa. “There are currently only four schools in the Maldives that is not Co-educational.”
Dr Musthafa said his idea was to develop an integrated educational system that comprised of science, commerce, arts and aesthetics.
“That is an educational system that will contain drawing, music, exercise and sports, plus praying, reciting of the Quran and other religious events,” he said. “This type of policy is known to increase students’ intellectual ability and skills. If anyone is in doubt, they can ask parents and school managements whether students have moved further away from religion or closer to it after I assumed office,” he said.
Luthfy has previously come under criticism after the Ministry’s steering committee suggested making Islam and Dhivehi optional for A-Level students. The controversial proposal led to late-night protests outside Luthfy’s house and an eventual no-confidence motion in parliament, which was annulled when President’s Nasheed’s entire cabinet resigned in protest at parliamentary obstruction.
In most places a 260 percent increase in tourist arrivals would be a cause for celebration. Not so for Hanifaru Bay.
Located off the uninhabited island of Hanifaru in Baa Atoll, the bay is a small enclosed reef the size of a football field. But what makes Hanifaru Bay unique and attracts tourists is the phenomena that occurs during the south west monsoon from May to November.
Interplay between the lunar tide and the south west monsoon enables build up of a massive concentration of plankton, which in turn attracts hundreds of huge manta rays and gigantic whale sharks. It’s usual to see up to 200 manta rays in a feeding frenzy, accompanied by whale sharks. The bay is one of the two sites in Maldives which acts as a cleaning station as well as feeding site for whale sharks.
Hanifaru Bay was declared a Marine Protected site last year by the government, in recognition of its importance in the ecosystem. When the bay was featured in National Geographic magazine last year, and a BBC Natural World documentary this year, the site’s fame spread all over the world.
Price of fame
“Sometimes we see up to 14 boats crammed into that little space,” says Mohamed Fathuhy, island chief of nearby Dharavandhoo.
He rues the fact that sometimes snorkelers and divers in the bay outnumber the animals.
Regulations announced by the Ministry of Environment on making the bay an MPA say that only five boats can engage in the area at any given time. It also limits the number of swimmers or divers to 80 at any one time.
However Fathuhy says some visitors to try and touch the animals. Safari boats sometimes take money from tourists saying there is a charge for snorkeling in the area. And overcrowding is so bad that crews of visiting safari boats and others had almost come to blows over access.
Ahmed Sameer, general secretary of Youth Association of Kamadhoo, another island nearby, says his co-islanders share the concern: “We are worried that if this goes on, the animals might stop coming and the place might be destroyed.”
Asked why the interest in Hanifaru Bay, Sameer says that Kamadhoo islanders have always been a very eco-conscious people.
“Every household in the island recently signed a pact to not harvest turtle eggs or take turtles, and participate in the turtle conservation project by Four Seasons,” he explains.
Concerned and galvanised into action by the efforts of Seamarc, an environmental consultancy firm, and Four Seasons Landaa Giraavaru, Fathuhy and Sameer is a part of a delegation that visited the Environment Ministry yesterday to share their concern and to suggest co-management of the site.
Cries of a community
The delegation consisted of representatives from the islands of Dhonfanu,Dharavandhoo,Thulhadhoo and Kamadhoo. Province minister Ali Niyaz, Dhonfanu Councillor, Director General of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Mohamed Zuhair, Mari Saleem of SEAMARC, Guy Stevens of Maldives Manta Ray Project and Executive members of Liveaboard Association Shaheena Ali and Fayaz Ismail attended the meeting alongside Minister of Environment Mohamed Aslam and Deputy Minister Mohamed Shareef.
Marie a passionate advocate of co management said “Baa atoll community would like to work with the government to help implement the regulations in place.”
“A cross section of the people in the atoll as well as stakeholders in the tourism industry, support the initiative to develop and manage Hanifaru Bay sustainable.”
The figures in Fathuhy’s presentation was impressive.
“Manta ray tourism generates an estimated US$8.1 million annually,” Fathuhy explained. Hanifaru Bay alone is estimated to generate US$ 500,000 in direct revenue for Maldivian economy this year.
A discussion ensued over wheather Baa Atoll could retain the revenues and the danger of the animals deserting the area if things continued as they were.
Some alterations to the existing regulations were proposed such as penalties for those who don’t adhere to regulations: having a fine for those coming into contact with the animals, and banning speedboats and boats with un-protected outboard engines, as well as implementing a compulsory certification system for guides and boat captains working there, and banning scuba diving in the vicinity.
Way forward
With Minister Aslam admitting that central government had difficulties in managing the MPA as well as other protected dive sites, the question arose over how best to go about it.
The lack of wardens or an effective system of policing the area is an acute problem in Maldives concerning MPA’s.
Hence the group discussed ways of managing the site, government or EPA managing it, going for a business model or a community based one.
The idea of forming a corporative found the most supporters with Aslam saying that “it’s a structured way of doing it as the laws are also already in place.”
Ismail and Shaheena from Liveaboard association were adamant that government had to play a major role in managing the site.
Shaheena pointed out that it would be unfair if any group got ownership of the place. “The process can’t be too democratic.”
“Tourists that hire speedboats from Male and go to that area will be disappointed if they can’t have access to the area.”
The delegation from Baa Atoll went back to their respective communities at the behest of Aslam to draw and propose a practical plan to manage the area.
While Baa Atoll community and the government try and figure out the best way to manage the area, the future of Hanifaru Bay hangs in balance along with its seasonal inhabitants.
Parliament today voted unanimously to approve Mariyam Azra as the President of the Maldives Human Rights Commission (HRCM), more than a month after the former commission member was nominated to the post.
While 54 MPs voted in favour of the nomination, President Mohamed Nasheed’s nominee to the post of HRCM Vice-President, Jeehan Mahmoud, received 22 votes in favour and 32 against.
Last month, former HRCM President Ahmed Saleem condemned parliament’s failure to approve a president and vice-president as “unforgivable.”
“What the Majlis has done to HRCM is unforgivable, and it’s all because HRCM and human rights are not as important to the Majlis as taking their leave,” he said.
Meanwhile, a coalition of local NGOs echoed Saleem’s concerns, pointing out that the non-appointment of a president and vice-president was “an immense obstacle to the effective functioning of the commission.”
According to article nine of the HRCM Act, the president of the commission holds the chair for meetings.
During the final sitting of the last session of parliament, some MPs objected to having two women as president and vice-president of the commission.
DRP Deputy Leader Ilham Ahmed said that while he considered the people appointed for HRCM as capable, the role of President and Vice President “should include a male.”
“Even if you look at it from a religious perspective or from the perspective of good policy, there should be a male in either post,’’ he said.
Independent MP for Kudahuvadhoo, Ahmed Amir, said it was “against human rights” to have two females in the roles of President and Vice President.
“It is the woman who calls for equality most of the time,’’ said Amir.
The government’s new co-education policy is a failed Western concept inconsistent with the teachings of Islam, the Adhaalath Party has said.
“Co-education is a concept introduced at the beginning of this century by Western countries, and later spread across the Islamic world by colonial force”, a statement issued by the Adhaalath Party said.
It is a concept that is alien to the emphasis that Islamic teachings place on gender segregation in the education system, the statement read.
Furthermore, Adhaalath said, co-education has been proven more harmful than beneficial “by modern research.”
Citing American writer, anti-feminist and Republican Party activist George Gilder, the Adhaalath Party said co-education has been known to “accelerate puberty in students and increase the testosterone levels of boys by 20 percent.”
“As a result, boys spend their time in a state of heightened sexual turmoil,” the party claimed.
The statement read that girls suffer similar consequences, with increased sexual hormones, and “often suffer from fatigue and depression as a result.”
Students of both sexes, therefore, it said, “spend more time focusing on the opposite sex than on their studies.”
Adhaalath Party also added that it was “astonished” that the Education Ministry was attempting to introduce a system of education that is not only against Islam, “but has also been tried, tested and failed in the West.”
Adhaalath Party also contradicted findings that attribute high academic achievements at Ahmadiyya School to its co-education policy.
“Not only are the boys and girls at Ahmadiyya being taught in separate classrooms – even the entrances used by the two sexes are separate,” Adhaalath said.
Deputy Minister of Education Dr Abdulla Nazeer recently told Minivan News the ministry has not decided to mix female and male students in the secondary grades.
“But we have decided to establish primary grades in all the schools,’’ Nazeer said. ‘’So Majeediyya School, Dharumavantha, Ameeniyya and Hiriya will no longer be solely for Secondary education.’’
Secondary education will be provided in all the primary schools as well.
Currently only male students can join Majeediyya and Dharumavantha while only females can join Ameeniyya and Hiriya school. They teach grade eight, nine and ten, the final three years leading up to GCE O’Levels.
The 42 year-old British woman whose body was found on the shore of Kuredhoo Island Resort has been identified as Sharon Duval from the village of Kidlington in Oxfordshire, UK.
The Oxford Mail reported that Duval died while on honeymoon with her husband Nick Duval. The pair were married last year and together ran the Highwayman pub in Kidlington.
Duval’s parents John and Pauline Stockford told the Oxford Mail that they did not know if she died “because of some sort of crime or an accident, and we will wait to hear the results of the postmortem.”
The pair told the Oxford Mail that they had not spoken to their daughter, who has a 16-year-old son, for 10 years after a family row.
“You can’t turn the clock back. We were both in tears when we found out and sat down and tried to talk it through,” they told the paper.
“Sharon was a very strong swimmer when she was a pupil, so it is surprising to hear that she died in these circumstances.
“The whole of Kidlington will be shocked by this – people still call it a village and it’s very close-knit.”
Police Sub-Inspector Ahmed Shiyam today told Minivan News that Duval had been observed drinking at the resort’s bar until late in the evening prior to her death, in the company of another individual.
“There is no sign of physical abuse or injury to the body, and at this point there is no evidence of any suspicious activity,” Shiyam said, “however are still taking the investigation very seriously.”
The resort yesterday declined to issue a statement to the media regarding Duvel’s death, however three staff members told Minivan News that the 42-year-old’s body was found on the seashore just after midnight on Friday evening, at approximately 12:30am.
The BBC has meanwhile reported that the UK Foreign Office is “urgently investigating” the death.
Duval is the second British national to die recently in the Maldives while on holiday. In early September top transplant and vascular surgeon Ali Bakran was pulled from the water and pronounced dead at Adaaran Meedhupparu Resort in Raa Atoll.
Police said that while the cause of death was “most likely” drowning, “it is very difficult to confirm without a postmortem, and that is not something we can do here [in the Maldives].”
The 61 year-old surgeon at Liverpool Hospital was on holiday with his wife Diane and daughter Miriam.
Political self-interest and false assumptions are behind some MPs’ opposition to the government’s plans to resettle a Guantanamo Bay detainee in the Maldives, Foreign Minister Dr Ahmed Shaheed has said.
Opposition to the plan, Dr Shaheed said, amounts to “a couple of MPs and their sponsored press” who “shot first and asked questions later”. Their objections to the plan, he said, do not reflect “core Maldivian values and are based on false assumptions.”
It is assumed, he said, that “everybody at Guantanamo is a lethal terrorist” and that “this government is going to break laws to accede to the United States’ request”.
Both assumptions are false, he said, and are backed by a third – again false – premise that “whatever Shaheed does, must be attacked”.
“Last year I was pilloried because I spoke to the Israelis… Last year the problem was that I did not care about Palestinians. This year the problem is that I care too much about the Palestinians,” Dr Shaheed said.
“When you remove this politicking and the madness from the surface”, he said, “you are left with a lot of people who think it is good to help people find a better life”. Helping Muslims, helping Palestinians, Dr Shaheed said, are values that Maldivians have long believed in.
Dr Shaheed was speaking to Minivan on the government’s plan to resettle a Guantanamo Bay detainee in the Maldives. The detainee is a Palestinian national who has remained in United States custody at Guantanamo Bay for the last eight years.
The detainee was taken into United States custody in Karachi, Pakistan, and transferred to the prison in Guantanamo Bay in 2002. “He was a non-political Muslim preacher, a Tablighi”, Dr Shaeed said.
“By all accounts, and from what I have seen, he is an innocent person,” Dr Shaheed said. No criminal charges were ever brought against him, nor was he tried at any of the US military tribunals that determined the “enemy combatant” status of detainees.
The Bush administration refused to grant ‘Prisoner of War’ status to any of the detainees held in United States custody as part of the War on Terror, denying them all the rights guaranteed by the Third Geneva Convention.
The decision allowed the United States government to detain prisoners indefinitely without charge and without legal representation. Despite the Obama administration’s decision to close Guantanamo Bay in 2008, close to 200 detainees still remain at the facility.
No money exchanged hands
The Maldivian government’s decision to assist the current United States administration in closing Guantanamo Bay by resettling one of the detainees, Dr Shaeed said, was not going to break any laws of the country, nor was it a decision made on a quid pro quo basis.
“The United States has not come with a bag full of money and said: ‘here’s your reward for doing this’, but because we work with the US on this and other issues, they will try to help us where we need help,” Dr Shaheed said.
He denied that the Maldives had been complicit in the Bush administration’s controversial practice of extraordinary renditions in which suspected terrorists were transported from one country to another without due process.
The Maldives, however, had acquiesced to the United States request to allow its planes to refuel at her airports during its military invasion of Afghanistan that began in October 2001.
Although the permission was granted, Dr Shaheed said, it was not utilised. It was more a pragmatic move which allowed the United States to add the Maldives to the list of countries that supported its War on Terror.
“It was also important for them to be able to say that Muslim countries were backing them also, because they were not attacking Islam, they were attacking Al-Qaeda.”
Proceeding with caution
Dr Shaeed said that until both the Maldivian parliament and the United States Congress were satisfied that the detainee did not pose a threat to the national security of either country, he would not be brought to the Maldives.
The invitation to resettle in the Maldives has been extended to the detainee on the basis that he agrees to abide by certain conditions, Dr Shaheed said. And the agreement with the United States to resettle him in the Maldives is dependent on the fulfilment of three conditions.
“We have to first satisfy ourselves that the person poses no threat to the Maldives; that our laws are compatible with the resettlement; and that the United States will meet its costs. That is the basis from which we started the negotiations, and that is what we are still maintaining,” Dr Shaheed said.
He denied any possibility that the detainee might establish links with the increasingly radical elements of Maldivian society. “There is no such danger”, he said.
Nor was there any evidence to suggest that detainees who are resettled in third countries associate with, or contribute to radicalisation of host societies, he said.
A “Mullah environment”
Dr Shaheed agreed that the Maldives lacks, and needs, an integrated and coherent anti-radicalisation policy that addresses the issue as a whole.
“It is too fragmented to say that there are nine in Pakistan doing Jihad, four in a park exploding a bomb, five in the park calling for the murder of a High Commissioner in another country – these are all fragmented – we need to see where we are in a more coherent manner,” Dr Shaheed said.
He said the Maldives needs to take stock of where it currently is, and to gauge how far the education system has become “atrophied into an instrument of radicalism”.
What is needed is to assess the extent to which democracy has “opened the floodgates of radical ideas”, he said, and how far the society itself has become a handmaiden of radicalism.
The ‘operating environment’ in the Maldives, he said, is “a Mullah environment”. Any development plans or any plans for change, unlike in other developing countries such as those in Latin America for example, he said, have to take “the Mullah environment into account”.
Grand narratives that currently dominate the Maldivian society, such as that of treating women as second class citizens, Dr Shaheed said, need to be addressed and changed.
A policy document that targets these problems in a coherent manner is needed, without which “we have not yet fathomed the scale of the problem”, he said.
“What we do know is, every day it is increasing”, Dr Shaheed said. “I believe women in this country are in great danger”.
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