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Comment: Government of the people, by the people, for the people…

The type of government that a nation consents to has a profound influence on its people and their quality of life. In the writings of early historians, Maldivians were depicted as “a most gentle people.”

Less than forty years ago, when a tourist visiting Male killed his girl-friend, practically the whole population of the island stopped their work and went to pay their respects. People were genuinely moved with sympathy for a victim of violence. “We were in deep shock. We were stunned really,” one man recalled.

How things have changed.

A single day’s headlines now expose the darker reality of this ‘Sunny Side of Life.’ A sixteen year old boy is murdered in a public park while law enforcement agents are busy arresting people for the crime of being “in possession of a cursed chicken.” A 65 year-old man is killed for his meagre pension money.

Meanwhile, the police pepper spray, beat and arrest people with impunity and young children are given guns to hold and admire as a tactic to enhance the profile of the Maldivian National Defence Force (MNDF).

Yes, change is inevitable. However, it is important to ask why such a fundamental change has occurred in the psyche of the whole nation in a 30 year time-frame. There might be many contributing factors but one of them stands out.

The style of governance under Gayoom’s regime affected the attitude of the whole nation. The violence, torture and lack of regard for other people’s dignity that characterises his regime, is unfortunately colouring the mind-set of ordinary citizens. The recent shameful episode of three policemen and an MNDF officer robbing expatriate workers makes sense in this dog-eat-dog society which is frighteningly becoming our reality. And why not? When ‘the best and the brightest’ of a country usurp power by pillage and brute force, the masses have no reason not to emulate their example. Exposure to violence desensitises us and reduces our sense of humanity.

There are a plethora of practical and philosophical reasons why the Maldives should embrace democracy at this stage of its development. One outstanding reason is the failure of the ‘Unity’ government that has emerged following the coup, which is neither a united nor a legitimate government. It is a loosely held conglomerate of ambitious individuals vying for power. The last thing on their minds is the well-being of the citizens. The sudden increase of police numbers, promotions and bonuses, in a period of economic recession, is testimony to the fact that the limited resources of the country are being squandered for the self-serving obsession of holding on to power.

Journalists, politicians and individual citizens discuss the execution of the coup that brought this regime back to power. While there is no doubt that a coup took place, and a legitimate, democratically-elected government overthrown, it is simply too generous to accept that a successful coup has been executed. A coup is not simply the acquisition of power. It also entails the maintenance of power by providing a functioning system of governance that would enable the usurpers to achieve legitimacy, at least through longevity.

What is obvious now is that the coup was a botch-up of gigantic proportions. The perpetrators of the coup underestimated the resilience of the people, ignored the determination of the MDP and assumed that Nasheed would walk away quietly and the rest of the population would return, sheep-like, to the conditions prior to the 2008 elections. However, three years of freedom from police persecution and terror has prompted a paradigm shift in the psyche of the nation. The coup government is struggling and is in a state of limbo. Their recent dealings with political activist and lawyer Mariya Didi and Chief Superintendent MC Hameed, Head of Intelligence of the Maldivian Police Service (MPS), have demonstrated the inadequacies of the regime in dealing with people who cannot be frightened into submission.

The regime has also made it clear to the general public that they are not capable of anything other than knee-jerk reactions. Meanwhile the people suffer as they watch the drama unfold and the numbers of political detainees continue to increase.

This failure to consolidate power is partly because autocracy of any form is an anachronism in the 21st century. Traditional respect for authority and the unquestioning subservience of citizens to those in power are fast disappearing. This is an age of social media and instant dissemination of information. Syria, Egypt and Libya provide clear evidence of how autocratic governments all over the world have been under increasing pressure. The type of Machiavellian political philosophy that advocates the suspension of common-place ethics from politics is out-dated and irrelevant in the 21st century, as is the Hobbesian interpretation of the social contract that people should submit to the authority of an absolute sovereign power.

Yet, these ideas form the political creed of the current regime in the Maldives; a cynical, out-dated creed that ignores the human potential for growth, both morally and intellectually. Thus, all autocratic governments, as the one that the old dictator has ‘gifted’ to the Maldives for a second time, are preoccupied with the business of propaganda, creating their own versions of the truth in an increasingly information-rich world.

Ruder Finn, the PR company employed by the regime to sanitise their record of human rights abuse, is not a new phenomenon, but the effectiveness of this huge monetary investment in disinformation, remains to be seen. Dr Hassan Saeed may indeed be destined forever to keep ‘applying lipstick to hideous pigs,’ as Yameen Rasheed so aptly puts it. However, the regime would be ill-advised to believe that the rest of the animals on the farm are impressed by the propaganda of Snowball and Napoleon.

It is generally agreed that the stability of a government is directly related to the economic well-being of a nation. What is less well understood is the fundamental human need for justice, order, goodness, and unity. In his hierarchy of needs for self-actualisation, Abraham Maslow defines these as ‘Meta-needs’, crucial qualities that help people to develop to their potential.

Where is justice when power is acquired and sustained by force? Where is order when the roads are filled with disenfranchised protesters and thousands are demanding that their right to vote be taken seriously? It is laughable to expect the nation to be united when the ruling hierarchy itself is divided by their personal agendas and are incapable of investing energy in the well-being of the people. The previous democratic government was much maligned for detaining a judge who was regarded as corrupt and morally questionable. While this may have been ‘impolitic’ in the cut-throat business of staying in power, it is a refreshing sign that the people’s government had the moral fibre to act decisively in a question of right and wrong, rather than be intimidated by political expediency.

But why democracy?

Winston Churchill’s words that “Democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried” have often been used as an apology for democracy. It seems to suggest that democracy is the best of a bad lot and we may as well make do with it because nothing else works any better. But modern research and experience seem to suggest otherwise. ‘The Spirit Level’ written by researchers Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett is based on a variety of cross- country comparisons. They argue that greater equality does not only produce better outcomes for the poor.

“Equality,” they point out, “is better for everyone,” including the rich and the elite of the society. Their well-evidenced thesis shows that unequal societies suffer from more insecurity and status-related fears, which permeate through the whole society, destroying the positive influences of community living and lowering the spirit of the poor and the rich alike.

Although it is simplistic to assume that democracy provides a totally equal society, empowering the people of the country to decide the direction of their government and its policies are crucial pre-requisites for a healthy and inclusive society. The good health of a society is of huge benefit even for the rich as it provides a stable, educated and flexible workforce capable of keeping up with the demands of a constantly changing world.

Thomas Paine, in his treatise Rights of Man points out that representative democracy is the most inclusive and the fairest form of government. Three centuries later, this claim still holds good. Democracy opens the door for the utilisation of everyone’s energy, ideas, creativity and intelligence for the well-being of the whole population. Conversely, the raison d’etre of any autocratic government, as with the regime currently in power in the Maldives, is the preservation of their own privilege and exclusivity.

It is not a historical accident that the democratic movement, especially since the coup, has resonated strongly with the combined voices of women and the youth of the nation. Any successful society in the 21st century must address the needs of these two powerful, but traditionally over-looked groups. Islamic fundamentalism has been legitimised in the Maldives by the coup of February 7 which saw the regime’s cynical manipulation of a small group of radicals to overthrow the democratic government. The inclusive nature of democracy is also the only response to the mindless, patriarchal and antiquated agendas of these individuals who consolidate power and maintain their own personal self-esteem through the subjugation of such groups as women and youth.

As a form of governance, democracy has the added advantage of allowing a safe and disciplined transfer of power. Autocratic rulers, who invariably need to abuse basic human rights to stifle opposition and to stay in power, inevitably carry with them increasing political baggage. Just as with Gaddafi in Libya, Assad in Syria provides a contemporary example of an autocratic ruler who has little to gain but much to lose by relenting to the demands of those who see that his days are numbered. The only option open for him is to fight to the bitter end.

The fact that Gayoom has initiated a court case against an 82 year-old Maldivian historian who claimed that there were 111 custodial deaths in the 30 years of Gayoom’s rule is a timely reminder of how insecure autocratic rulers feel as they come to the twilight years of their political careers. The costs of this predictable path of action are staggering in human, social and economic terms; not just for the perpetrator of the crimes, but for the nation as a whole. Democracy, where the head of a government is decided by the consent of the majority of the people, is the only way of avoiding such a political quagmire.

Ultimately, however, it is a question of governance. In this context governance describes the methods a government use to ensure that citizens follow its processes and regulations. Good governance, like good parenting, is not simply a set of rules to achieve compliance through fear and punishment. Good governance is underpinned by a strong set of moral and social imperatives. It relies heavily on a series of ethical and social requirements such as justice and a shared vision by all its constituents. As abusive and violent parents enslave their children in a vicious cycle of similar behaviour, oligarchic systems of governance which portray that ‘might is right’, have a hugely negative and vicious impact on the citizenry.

Just as thirty years of life under Gayoom saw an increasing number of Maldivians lose their innate sense of fairness and compassion, Waheed’s recent sanctifying of the MNDF has ramifications for the type of society we live in and will continue to live in.

What the country needs is healing, justice and the voices of its populace to be heard. What is on offer is more imprisonment, more thuggery and more money being wasted in white-washing these actions. For many people, including large segments of the police force, MNDF and ordinary citizens, there is something extremely obscene in the disparity between what the country needs and the oppressive responses of the regime.

Maldivians have the courage and maturity to take risks and grow as a nation. The only way forward now is through an early, democratic election, before the powerful tentacles of autocracy reduce the country into another abyss of hopelessness, as it did for thirty years under Gayoom. History does not have to repeat itself.

Democracy is premised on the understanding that human dignity is an inherent right. But with the exception of a short period of three years under a fledgling democracy, generations of Maldivians have grown up and grown old with the belief that life is an inevitable submission to force, brutality and loss of dignity. Violence begets violence. It is an insidious force which destroys the very foundation of nationhood: justice, trust and compassion. To live wisely, the nation must attend to the welfare of all its citizens, not just a privileged few. The rule of the few must end. Government should be of the people. It should be by the people. And most importantly, it should be for the people.

All comment pieces are the sole view of the author and do not reflect the editorial policy of Minivan News. If you would like to write an opinion piece, please send proposals to [email protected]

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Waheed digging in heels by sacrificing powers to appease the coalition partners: Eurasia Review

For an observer from outside it looks that a “battle royal” is going on between the Government, its security forces and the civil service including the judiciary on one side and the opposition led by the ousted former President Mohamed Nasheed on the other, writes Dr S Chandrasekharan.

Added to this is the excessive enthusiasm of the security forces shown on behalf of the government and this has only made the law and order situation worse. One girl from opposition who was affected in an offensive of the Police termed the behaviour of the security forces as “animalistic.”

The opposition is still able to muster a crowd of 5000 anytime to oppose the government policies. The forces faced stiff opposition when the structures made by the MDP in the meeting ground at Usfasgandu were being dismantled and the High court order stopping the demolition came too late!

On the economic front, Maldives is the only country in this region that has not seen an increase in tourist arrivals this year. Inflation on an average is about 15.99 percent and the budget deficit is projected to go up by 27 percent of the GDP. In order to please certain sections the government is forced to subsidise and there is also an increase in capital expenditure on government institutions. There is also a drop in government income by 23 percent. The most recent case is the attempt to placate the media by giving government notifications and announcements which the President says is necessary for the media to survive!

President Waheed is digging his heels. He made the most shocking statement that he does not have to resign even if it is proved that there was a “coup” unless his involvement in the coup was established. If Nasheed’s ouster was found to be illegal even then he can continue as the “Maldivian laws ” do not permit any change! So he says. What a stand for Stanfordian who has seen many UN jobs? Apparently he is enjoying the power which he would not be doing but for a quirk of circumstances!

Clearly, President Waheed has consolidated his position. But this has been possible only because as one observer said, by sacrificing his powers to appease the coalition partners, who have but for a few hiccups appear to stay in contact so far. But this may not last long. Gayoom is still seen to be guiding the country from behind. The current approach of the government to use religious paranoia and the security forces to break the rallies has the foot prints of Gayoom!

Setting a date for early elections is the last priority though India wanted this to be given top priority. President Waheed and more than he, Gayoom’s daughter Dunya has repeatedly said that elections cannot be held without constitutional amendments. The earliest date will be July 2013 and whatever India may want or say privately, President Waheed as advised by Gayoom is not going to hold the elections anytime sooner.

Gayoom claimed a month ago that “international calls for early elections have grown faint” and was not an issue anymore!

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Comment: Conflicting interim reports highlight political spat

Two interim reports from the two sides, so to say, and the focus is slowly slipping away from the work on hand for the Commission of National Inquiry (CNI) probing then-Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed’s resignation of February 7. It is back more ore less in the realm of politics and public-spat.

Of the two reports, if they could be called so, one has the relative legitimacy of being produced by the outgoing CNI before it was expanded, and the other from President Nasheed’s Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), at whose instance the CNI is being expanded in the first place. Who jumped the gun and why are questions for which neither side may have convincing answers.

It does not stop there. The police have since arrested a senior intelligence officer from the Nasheed era, for providing information for the MDP report. Chief Superintendent of Police Mohamed Hameed and Staff Sergeant Ahmed Naseer were arrested, based on court warrants, for talking to the MDP probe.

The Government side has also questioned the propriety of President Nasheed’s one-time Defence Minister and later National Security Advisor, AmeenFaizal, who co-authored the MDP report and sought to establish the party’s earlier claims of a ’military/police coup’ forcing President Nasheed’s resignation. At the same time, Assistant Police Commissioner Hassan Habeeb has reportedly complained a that a Quran teacher has stopped giving tuition classes for his daughter, citing his name figuring in the MDP report.

President Waheed Hassan has since sort of clarified that the expanded CNI with an MDP nominee and a retired Judge from Singapore as external member on the panel would review the work done by the probe team thus far, before proceeding with the task on hand.

Yet, it is anybody’s guess if and why the Government did not discourage the CNI from publishing the ’time-line’, when it was due for review. The CNI’s claim that the publication was to encourage the public to come up with their views within a given deadline does not wash. The people at large were not privy to the controversies attending on President Nasheed’s resignation, and they could not have been called to act as jury in the case, which could only be described as tendency towards ’mobocracy’ of sorts.

The MDP can be expected to raise the issue of the outgoing CNI publicising its incomplete work as prejudicing the views of the expanded CNI and also that of the public. There is some validity in the party’s position as none of the three members of the incumbent CNI are expected to opt out. Thus, they could still have defended their work even if the two new members were to contest the same. Incidentally, they would still hold numerical majority in the expanded CNI. The party, citing the CNI, has also demanded President Waheed’s resignation, but has been selective about its side of the story flowing from the CNI time-line. Having launched mob violence repeatedly on the streets of Male, the national capital, and other urban centres across the country, the party may have also lost the moral right to question the methods of others ? Not that such a tendency by anyone should be encouraged, now or later.

The publication of the CNI time-line should not absolve the MDP of the charge that they too might have shot themselves in the foot all over again. Having demanded steadfastly for expanding the CNI and having its nominee on board, along with one representing the international community so to say, the party should have waited for the probe report to be out before coming out with its clarifications, if any. Two wrongs do not a right make, and possible MDP’s claims that the existing CNI was the one that started off the game should not wash, either. The party could be charged with seeking to influence the expanded CNI and the people at large, just as it has charged the existing CNI already.

The MDP has also not denied the charge flowing from the arrest of the two police officers, who were believed to have talked to the party’s probe team. Instead, the party’s international spokesperson Hamid Abdul Ghafoor has charged the Government with purging ’police whistle-blowers’, as if to defend their right to speak to private probes, particularly when an official one was halfway through its work. Even granting that the police officers concerned had talked to the MDP team in good faith that the Government probe is an eye-wash, it is anybody’s guess why the party decided to proceed with the publication of the report of its two-member team after its demands on the CNI front had been met, through international intervention. Thus, it is not the party whose credibility alone is under a cloud now.

Pressuring the probe at birth

Prima facie, avoidable controversies of the kind will pressure the expanded CNI at birth, and also take precious time off their work-schedule, viewing and reviewing the work already done, more closely than may have been otherwise. This could mean that the expanded, five-member CNI may not be able to meet the July-end deadline for submitting its report. The three-member, original CNI could not meet the May-end deadline earlier, after a decision was taken to expand the same, to include representatives proposed by the MDP and the Commonwealth.

This could push back future political negotiations, particularly on the MDP demand for early poll for the presidency that much more. One can safely conclude at this stage that the MDP’s year-end deadline for the purpose may be dismissed as impractical. Thus far, the Government parties have been arguing that the demand was improper and not provided for in the Constitution as it exists now.

The constitution of the CNI also suffers from another lacuna, among many, which the inexperience of the nation’s polity – particularly that of the more vociferous MDP – has not addressed. Having been constituted by President Waheed, the CNI will have to submit its report to him. Through the past months since the exit of President Nasheed, the MDP in particular has charged President Waheed with being party to the ’conspiracy’. It has always demanded the resignation of President Waheed. Under such circumstances, the propriety of the CNI submitting its report to President Waheed could be under question. One can expect the MDP in particular to raise such issues, post facto, but it may be in the fitness of things to address such minor irritants early on as they could be blown out of proportion on a later day.

Whither Roadmap talks?

Even without what could be described as inevitable delays in the working of the CNI, the Roadmap Talks for political reconciliation remain dead-locked. The agenda for the talks is noteworthy for including in it concerns for consensus over the nation’s economy, going beyond the realm of immediate politics. There are also references to the need for constitutional amendments for protecting national institutions. These are serious issues, which need to be taken up in a spirit of national understanding and cohesion, going beyond the immediate demands of partisan politics of one kind or the other. Many of the issues on board relate to the dynamic nature of democratic politics and Constitution-making for a nation that had remained politically insulated from modern influences and practices. The Indian contribution to the Roadmap talks too should be viewed from the South Asian neighbour’s experience with the dynamic processes of democratic well-being.

It does not flow that the Roadmap Talks should be finding solutions to each of the identified problems facing the nation, here and now. As the processes that it had set in motion for its functioning the all-party grouping had started with prioritising the agenda for discussion, decision-making and implementation. They now need to focus on these greater aspects of democratic being and Constitution-making, which are both dynamic processes. Having set the nation’s priority, the stake-holders can then prioritise between those needing their immediate attention and solution, and those that need to mature further before the nation could apply its collective wisdom to problem-solving.

Ensuring the independence of constitutional institutions and establishing their credibility have to be dovetailed if Maldivian democracy has to mean something more than what governance was all about in the pre-democracy era. It is not only about the MDP picking up individuals with a past but also insisting only on publicising their past, and politicking almost exclusively on the same. Such an approach meant that there was paucity of ideas for the Nasheed Government other than those prescribed on the economic front by an external organisation as the IMF. This created a chasm within the polity and even otherwise, which the Government of the day sought to brush under the democracy carpet.

’Conflict as comfort zone’

Instead, it is all about addressing the larger issues and concerns that related to the past, and the accompanying circumstances. There are few MDP leaders, for instance, who do not have their past linked to what the party often describes as the ’dreaded regime’ of former President Maumoon Gayoom. The second-line leaders in a cadre-based party like the MDP and in a country like MDP with no democratic past to boast of at any point in time, do not have the kind of exposure and experience required to govern a nation as complex as Maldives, however ’tiny’ it might look for the outside world.

Independent of the numbers that have been added to the MDP membership list after the party came to power, the core cadre of the party still seem to live in the past. The have been fed on an ideology and dogma that have no relation to ground realities of politics and public life in any democracy. They have also been slow in on-job learning, in relation to the attitudinal changes required to be the party in power. This trend seems to dominate the decision-making processes in the party, post-resignation, as well, and the MDP seems shy of reviewing its own contributions to the expanding political mess and the repeated constitutional deadlocks.

This does not mean that the MDP alone has the responsibility in the matter. Most, if not all political parties in the Government at present, were partners with the MDP in ushering in democracy ahead of the presidential polls in 2008. All of them, including then President Gayoom, had facilitated the democratic transition. While most others also facilitated the election of MDP’s Nasheed as President in the second, run-off round, as the incumbent, President Gayoom willingly handed over power without protest or plots, which some MDP leaders had otherwise anticipated during the run-up to the presidential polls. They too thus share the responsibility for having democracy take deep-roots, particularly since no one in the nation’s polity seems to be visualising any reversal of democracy. Yet, the responsibility of the MDP in ushering in democracy, and the party’s attendant duty for understanding the processes even better, is a role that the leadership has to take more seriously than at present.

For now, Maldives and Maldivians can take heart that they have only ’telescoped’ the dynamism of democracies into a much shorter span than in nations of the world, including South Asian neighbours like India and Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan. Yet, Maldives cannot afford to continue with conflict as comfort zone of internal contradictions, to the exclusion of the work on hand and issues of every day governance that can be put off only at peril to the nation and the people, and polity and political leaderships. They need to act, and no time is better than the hour that has already been lost.

The writer is a Senior Fellow at Observer Research Foundation.

All comment pieces are the sole view of the author and do not reflect the editorial policy of Minivan News. If you would like to write an opinion piece, please send proposals to [email protected]

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Comment: The spy who came in from the coup

Law and order appears to have gone a bit schizophrenic in  the Maldives in the last few days. First the Maldives Police Service (MPS) arrested its intelligence head, Chief Superintendent (MC) Mohamed Hameed, on charges of ‘endangering internal security’ by disclosing classified information.

Hameed is alleged to have co-operated with the co-authors of ‘The Police and Military Coup’, an MDP-affiliated investigation into the events of 7 February 2012. The report was released in response to the current government’s ‘findings’ into the events, published so prematurely as to be available for public feedback even before investigations began.

The MPS says drafts of the Coup Report, along with commentary, were found in MC Hameed’s gmail account. Nobody has yet answered the question of why the MPS was snooping around in the man’s private email account in the first place. Is it normal for the MPS to spy on their officers?

Then the Criminal Court granted the MPS a five-day extension to Hameed’s detention. He was promptly taken to Dhoonidhoo, the Maldives’ most famous prison island.  Hameed’s lawyers lodged an appeal at the High Court on the same day but he was not granted a hearing until the fifth and last day of his detention. Three Justices agreed unanimously that he should be detained for five days, just hours before the five-day detention period expired.

Now, is it just me, or is it a bit difficult to get your head around the question of why the High Court would deign to deliver that judgement at that particular time?  Three more hours, and the detention order would no longer be valid anyway. So what was the eleventh hour High Court ruling for?

The High Court’s behaviour becomes all the more inexplicable in light of the fact that shortly afterwards the Criminal Court released Hameed. It saw no grounds to detain him further. All told, the judiciary does not seem to know quite what to do, with itself or with a problem like Hameed.

What is to be done with Hameed? Was he ‘spying for the enemy camp’ as some are alleging? Or is he a heroic whistle-blower? Is he to be jailed for life, or celebrated as a voice that stood up for democracy?

National security violation or whistle-blowing?

The MPS is alleging that by talking to the authors of the Coup Report, Hameed had facilitated an ‘intelligence leak’. Here’s a Tweet by pro-government blogger endorsed by  Police Commissioner Abdulla Riyaz.

Was it an intelligence leak?

The Coup Report does not name any names that are not in the public domain already as having been involved in the events of 7 February; nor does it reveal information a third party had not been privy to previously. What the report seems to have done, for the most part, is gather together scattered evidence already available on various platforms on the Internet and other media into a coherent single narrative.

It appears the authors shared their drafts with Hameed, and he acted as some sort of a proof-reader or a fact-checker. Double-checking what was in the report against what he saw and knew as the Intelligence Chief on 7 February. The MPS says it saw evidence of this in Hameed’s gmail account.

In the absence of an Official Secrets Act or whistle-blower legislation (any lawyer wanting to stop practising the art of silence is welcome to contradict or complement this), what is the most likely legal instrument that would be used for prosecuting Hameed?

The Police Act is a likely resource. It is what the MPS says Hameed violated. The Police Code of Conduct says:

4. Confidentiality

Information obtained during police duty should be confidential and not shared with a third party. Information about police operations and information contained within official police records should not be made public unless their exposure is lawfully ordered.

So, technically, Hameed was acting against the Police Code of Conduct when he liaised with the authors of the coup report.

But, what if he was co-operating in revealing a crime? In such a scenario, Hameed cannot be regarded as guilty of misconduct or any other offence, but becomes a whistle-blower. In the absence of a Maldivian legal definition, let’s go by the dictionary definition:

whis·tle·blow·er or whis·tle-blow·er or whistle blower (hwsl-blr, ws-)

n.

One who reveals wrongdoing within an organisation to the public or to those in positions of authority: ”The Pentagon’s most famous whistleblower is . . . hoping to get another chance to search for government waste” (Washington Post).
whistle-blowing n.

What the Coup Report alleges, and is the opinion shared by tens of thousands of Maldivians, is that the elected government of the Maldives was illegally overthrown on 7 February with the help of police mutiny. If so, providing information on how the police mutiny occurred is not a crime.

Besides, information relating to those events should not be an official secret or classified information. What could there be of more grave public interest than knowing how a government most voted for ended so suddenly and in such questionable circumstances?

Would Hameed not have given the same information to the Commission of National Inquiry if it had bothered to ask him? Would he be not sharing the same information with CoNI now that it’s work has begun at long last? Or is this a way of making sure Hameed is not able to freely speak to CoNI?

If the State were to go after Hameed, there is also Section 29 of the Penal Code:

Whoever attempts to commit or participates in or facilitates the commission of an act against the State shall be punished with imprisonment for life or exile for life or imprisonment or exile for a period between 10 years and 15 years.

An ‘act against the State’ is a term so broad that the act does not necessarily have to amount to an offence to be deemed punishable. The State, meanwhile, is defined as:

the Cabinet existing in accordance with the Constitution, People’s Majlis and collectively all agencies that are entrusted with the administration of those entities. This definition shall also include all property belonging to the State.

So, anyone who does anything about anything to do with the State, which the state deems to be ‘against’ it, can be jailed for life, or banished for life?

Then again, the above definition defines the State as ‘the Cabinet existing in accordance with the Constitution.’ Which means that, if this government is found to be illegitimate, the Cabinet cannot be seen as existing in accordance with the Constitution, and therefore, Hameed could not have committed an ‘act against the State’.

Which brings it all back to the Mother Question upon which all other questions depend: is Waheed’s government legitimate?

Should that question not be answered first before pursuing people who talk about it for espionage and/or defamation? Shouldn’t any information made public for the purposes of answering that question be deemed valuable rather than criminal? Shouldn’t holders of such information be regarded as vital witnesses to be protected rather than traitors to be prosecuted?

Every question that depends on ‘if this government were legitimate’ should take a back-seat to that of how the first democratically elected government ended on 7 February. Especially the question of who is the hero and who the villain.

All comment pieces are the sole view of the author and do not reflect the editorial policy of Minivan News. If you would like to write an opinion piece, please send proposals to [email protected]

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Religion extensively used for political control in the Maldives: Himal magazine

Islamic radicalism, which played a key role in the ouster of the government of Mohammed Nasheed, continues to grow in the Maldives several months after his ‘resignation’, writes Yameen Rasheed for Himal Southasian magazine.

“While Nasheed has repeatedly warned of the danger of growing religious intolerance, political polarisation around the issue has also meant that for the first time space has opened up that allows protests and criticism of religious extremists.

Religion has historically been extensively used for political control in the Maldives. While the active targeting of political opponents as apostates might be relatively modern, the Maldives has had a xenophobic view of ‘foreign religions’ for much longer. This state of fear has been carefully preserved and cultivated instead of being eradicated by modern dictators like former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, who found it a useful political tool.

As anti-Gayoom sentiments spread, religious radicalism gained acceptance as a legitimate avenue of dissent. Towards the end of the democratic uprising in the late 2000’s, as the restrictions on media and freedom of speech were gradually lifted, Salafi radio stations mushroomed and bookstores began to sell fiery, jihadi titles publicly. A casual stroll down the capital today reveals an overwhelming majority of women wearing burqas – a dramatic transformation that took less than a decade.

Unlike in the Gayoom era when Islamic fundamentalism was harshly suppressed to project an air of stability and peace, perhaps with the tourism industry in mind, Nasheed’s administration publicly acknowledged the problem of widespread religious fundamentalism. Consequently, his government made the calculated move to align itself closely with India and the West, while controversially renewing ties with Israel – a move that sparked an outcry from the religious right.

Nasheed often defended the traditionally liberal, moderate and Sufism-influenced Maldivian belief system, and appealed to the public to reject imported practices such as female genital mutilation and keeping concubines. He also publicly threw his weight behind cultural activities such as music and dance which had long been under attack from the ultra-conservative religious right.

Perhaps as a result, the events leading up to the dramatic toppling of the first democratically elected government in February 2012 had a distinctly religious nature. The first major protests against the MDP government launched in early 2010 were against the government’s alleged plans to permit the sale of alcohol to foreigners in an upmarket hotel in the capital. Following the success of that protest, all the subsequent protests against the MDP government took on a religious tone, labelling the MDP as a promoter of ‘irreligiousness’.

In October 2011, during the 18th SAARC summit in Addu city, opposition parties organised strong protests with radical religious overtones. When monuments such as the statue of a lion gifted by Sri Lanka were declared ‘idols of worship’ and vandalised, the vandals were hailed as ‘national heroes’ by the parties which are now represented in Waheed’s cabinet. These parties also condemned Navanetham Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, when she spoke against medieval practices such as public flogging, which are still prevalent in the Maldives. Protesters on the street raised placards demanding that Pillay be flogged.

The series of religious protests culminated in a massive rally on 23 December 2011, when a coalition of opposition parties came under one umbrella to label the government ‘un-Islamic’.

The December rally exposed a dangerous strategy employed by the then-opposition coalition – a disturbing willingness to steer the rhetoric to the far, militant right. The official website for the protest even put up a demand for people who ‘went against Islam’ to be killed. The article was soon taken down, citing ‘technical errors’, but not before it was reported in the local media.

Although the 7 February police and military mutiny that eventually led to the fall of the Nasheed-led government was sparked off by clashes between pro- and anti-government groups, it ended up emitting strong religious tones by the next day. Videos from that fateful day show uniformed military and police personnel marching down the streets to loud chants of ‘Allahu Akbar!’, as they proceeded to attack the MDP party campus.

Ironically, by giving voice to an Islamic party, Nasheed allowed the Adhaalath Party to run programs preaching the conservative form of Islam to targeted sections of the society, including prison inmates, police and military personnel. When Nasheed announced his ‘resignation’, top police officials, along with the alleged coup leaders, chanted religious slogans loudly in celebration.

Meanwhile, vandals had broken into the national museum and smashed ancient coral statues of the Buddha and other priceless artefacts from the Buddhist period of Maldivian history.

Stanford-educated President Waheed personally holds modern, secular, liberal views much like Nasheed. However, unlike Nasheed, he simply does not have enough political clout to stand up to the religious right. Indeed, in late-February in an effort to cement his support base among the Islamists, Waheed gave a fiery speech, invoking jihadi phrases and calling upon the ‘mujahideen’ to protect the national identity. Recently the Ministry of Islamic Affairs requested Waheed to allow the military and police to grow beards. Given that his fledgling National Unity Party has no elected members in either the Parliament or the local council, it remains to be seen how Waheed will respond to pressure from ultra-orthodox sections in his government.”

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Two thirds of MDP membership vote in party’s single candidate elections

Two-thirds of the MDP’s 48,181-strong membership base turned out to vote in the party’s single-candidate internal elections, held over the weekend to determine its presidential candidate.

Former President Mohamed Nasheed ran unopposed in the party’s election of its presidential candidate, however the party’s regulations require any candidate to receive at least 10 percent of the party’s vote to secure the nomination.

Following the final count of the 258 ballot boxes, Nasheed recorded 31,798 votes in favour to 269 against his being the party’s presidential candidate.

Chairperson candidate Moosa ‘Reeko’ Manik had 29,044 votes in favour to 2160 against, while Deputy Chairperson candidate Ali Shiyam had 563 in favour to 7 against.

The MDP has maintained calls for early elections following its ousting from power on February 7, with Nasheed resigning during a police and military mutiny under what he subsequently claimed was duress. The party has held regular demonstrations since that time calling for early elections.

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Government, MDP Chairman, trade threats of jail time

Fresh from his election as Chairman of the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), Moosa ‘Reeko’ Manik has said the those found guilty of being involved in what his party alleges was a coup would be jailed for a long time, reports Haveeru.

Moosa’s comments comes two days after the same newspaper quoted the Home Minister and Deputy Leader of the Dhivehi Qaumee Party (DQP) Mohamed Jameel Ahmed as saying that former President Mohamed Nasheed’s crimes would see him go to prison .

Nasheed’s alleged crimes, said Jameel last week, were due to reach the Prosecutor General’s desk within a week.

“[The charges] include the case known to all which is the unconstitutional arrest and subsequent detention of Criminal Court’s Chief Judge. I’m quite certain that Anni (Nasheed) would be found guilty in that case by a court of law,” Jameel claimed in Haveeru.

Moosa responded to these claims today that it is Jameel, amongst others, who will be jailed.

“We will not be afraid of Jameel, we will not be afraid of Habeeb, neither will we be afraid of Nazim,” Moosa is reported to have said.

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Arrest of intelligence chief sign of “growing paranoia”: MDP

Additional reporting by Ahmed Nazeer

The Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) has issued a statement condemning the arrest of police whistleblowers who cooperated with the production of its report into the controversial transfer of power of February 7.

Police head of intelligence, Chief Superintendent Mohamed Hameed, was arrested on Thursday and detained on Dhoonidhoo.

A police statement alleged that Chief Superintendent Hameed “distributed information obtained pertinent to his tenure as Head of the Intelligence Department, police matters and internal security, along with [providing] misleading information to certain individuals for reaping benefit out of it to drive rift within police officers and the community.”

He was presented to the Criminal Court that afternoon, which extended his detention period by five days. Hameed’s family have appealed the case in the High Court, arguing that his pretrial detention period was extended in violation of the law as Hameed was arrested over a disciplinary issue and not a criminal offence.

Hameed’s lawyer told the court that there were police officers accused of more serious crimes who had not been detained, alleging that in one instance a senior police officer stood accused of attempting to rape a woman and in another incident, influence a judge in a case involving the police officer’s interest.

His lawyer argued that the Criminal Court judge had extended Hameed’s detention period not based on what the police told the judge, but based on the judge’s own view, and that therefore Hameed had lost the right to respond to the accusations.

In response, the prosecution lawyer said that Hameed was accused not of a disciplinary issue but a criminal offence, and contended that the Criminal Court judge had declared Hameed a threat to society because police told the judge he might seek to influence evidence.

He also noted that the matter involving the police officer accused of rape had been sent to the Prosecutor General’s office.

Several other officers were also reported to have been detained last week, however Police Spokesperson Sub-Inspector Hassan Haneef said Hameed was the only officer formally arrested.

The MDP held protests over the weekend calling for Hameed’s release, while a Hameed’s family have appealed the case in the High Court, and said the court was due to issue a verdict later on Sunday evening.

In a statement, MDP Spokesperson Hamid Abdul Ghafoor said the arrest of the Chief Superintendent was “further evidence of the Maldives’ rapid descent into a police state.”

“Brave men and women who wish to stand up for the rule of law, for democracy and for human rights are today subjected to constant threats and intimidation. This purge of police officers who the Government considers possible opponents demonstrates President Waheed’s growing paranoia and the fact that his coalition Government are determined to rule by fear,” Ghafoor said.

“MDP calls on the EU, the US, the UN Human Rights Council and others to urgently enquire into the well-being of these police officers and to hold this illegal government accountable for their growing use of violence and intimidation for political means,” he added.

President’s Office Spokespersons Masood Imad and Abbas Adil Riza were not responding at time of press.

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Comment: Maldives politicians take to twitter, results mixed

This article first appeared on DhivehiSitee. Republished with permission.

British Prime Minister, David Cameron, when asked for his views about politicians on Twitter, famously replied: ‘Too many tweets might make a twat.” Cameron was discussing the instantaneousness of modern communication, and the perils of politicians tweeting without thinking.

It should be said that neither side of the divided Maldivian political landscape are too keen to listen to Cameron right now. The authoritarians have a bone to pick with him for declaring President Nasheed his ‘new best friend’ and ‘ideal stag party-companion’ not long before the coup; and Nasheed’s supporters aren’t happy with him for abandoning his new best friend at the first sign of trouble. But, on lessons about tweeting, Cameron’s advice is spot on for Maldivian politicians.

Twitter is as popular in the Maldives as it is in all other countries going through political turmoil. Ordinary Maldivian Twitterians and Tweeps have the same behavioural patterns as those of their foreign counterparts. Both supporters of the government and opposing democrats are on Twitter everyday, expressing their divergent opinions, heckling the opposition, drumming up support for and covering protests, having fun, and of course, trolling.

The behaviour of Maldivian politicians and other leaders on Twitter, however, is an entirely different matter. Their Twitter life is remarkably different from tweeting politicians in other countries. Like the sheer amount of time they seem to have to devote to Twitter for one thing. Whereas other leaders such as American President Obama or say Dr Manmohan Singh, the Indian PM, all have their staff tweet for them, President Waheed likes to do it himself.

To be fair, Dr Waheed has only tweeted just over a hundred times but, clearly, he does it himself, and also thinks it is about himself as a person rather than about his presidency. He likes to post pictures with supporters (an inordinate number of them appear to be children), and at times provide some intimate insights into his life such as how he enjoys taking the time to smell flowers on weekends.

Then there’s the large number of fake accounts that have sprung up pretending to be some politician or another. By fake accounts I don’t mean those that are obviously parodies. The new president Dr Waheed and his wife Ilham Hussein both have good ones. Witty and insightful, they satirise the couple well:

President Waheed became the butt of many jokes when his first Tweet as president was one about having his account verified as authentic by Twitter. It was a similar story with newly appointed Attorney General Azima Shukoor. Her first order of business after assuming office was to send out a press release – on official letterhead of the Attorney General’s Office – to confirm which of two Twitter accounts in her name was the authentic one. Don’t know why she bothered. She doesn’t have much to say anyway. Perhaps Twitterians shouldn’t have laughed at their antics so hard. Differentiating between fake accounts and real ones has become important, given the content of some Tweets. One of the most dubious ones is that of the President’s Spokesperson Abbas Riza. He has said on television that the account is his, but I still inadvertently do a double-take at some of the Tweets he sends out. He never refers to MDP (Maldivian Democratic Party) – to which President Nasheed belongs – as MDP. He prefers to call it ‘NDP Terror Wing’. Presumably the N stands for Nasheed. Any protest that MDP organises, the President’s Spokesperson refers to as activities of ‘NDP Terror Wing’. What’s worse are his personal attacks on Nasheed. His most offensive Tweet of late has been:

‘Run’di Kaalhu’ is an insult in Dhivehi. Loosely translated, it means ‘whoring crow’. That’s the name the President’s spokesperson has decided to refer to the protest camp MDP had on the South eastern corner of Male’. I don’t think the rest of the tweet needs any explanation. These types of tweets on a regular basis, from a person in such a job, would be regarded as highly offensive, and often defamatory, in any other country which claims to be a democracy. In the Maldives, however, they go un-remarked upon by the mainstream media or anyone else. The only people who seem to care are the Twitter community. Pro-government Tweeps find it hilarious, the other side is outraged. But they remain on record, and the President’s Spokesperson keeps on tweeting. The Commissioner of Police, Abdulla Riyaz, has an account which nobody doubts is his, and is quite possibly the most frequently updated timeline of all leaders appointed to high ranks after February 7. He is convinced that his role in 7 February events [he was one of the three civilians who ‘negotiated’ President Nasheed’s resignation inside the military headquarters] was heroic, and has boasted on Twitter that he has nothing to apologise for as he’s ‘proud of what he did’. Here’s a typical example:

And it’s not uncommon for him to come out with an absolute shocker, something that a police commissioner wouldn’t say even in your wildest dreams. Like this one:

Another account that caused consternation among the Twitter community is that purported to be of Masood Imad, Dr Waheed’s Media Secretary. Masood’s timeline is less shocking than that of the President’s Spokesperson, but it seems to have got the President’s goat more than any others.

Dhivehi Sitee has come upon some evidence to show that the President has tried hard to stop the ‘Masood Imad’ account. Not because it’s insulting, but because it was deemed to be providing ‘somewhat accurate projections of the administration.’

Here is a screen shot of the President’s son – it is not known in what capacity he is acting – trying to get the owner of the account to hand it over to the Real Masood Imad.

I guess this means that although the Masood Imad account is fake, it is one that we should follow if we want to have some ‘somewhat accurate projections of the administration’.

Azra Naseem holds a doctorate in International Relations.

All comment pieces are the sole view of the author and do not reflect the editorial policy of Minivan News. If you would like to write an opinion piece, please send proposals to [email protected]

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