Tag: Politics

Amnesty International gave imprisoned activists credibility as political refugees: Zuhair

The world’s largest human rights NGO, Amnesty International, celebrated its 50th anniversary over the weekend, marking half a century since a British lawyer named Peter Benenson campaigned for the release of Portugese students sentenced to seven years imprisonment for toasting liberty.

The Nobel Peace Prize-winning organisation counts three million supporters, members and activists in 150 countries and territories all over the world, and produces 400-500 reports on human rights every year.

Amnesty adopted current Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed as a prisoner of conscience in April 1996 after he was sentenced to two years imprisonment on charges relating to his activities as a dissident journalist.

“Amnesty International considered his detention to be politically motivated and was concerned he would not receive a fair trial,” Amnesty said at the time. “Mohamed Nasheed attended several court hearings but the court did not come to a decision. Amnesty International is very concerned that despite release, Mohamed Nasheed’s ‘sedition’ charges have not been withdrawn “

In 2008, Amnesty issued a statement welcoming Nasheed as President of the island nation, and urged him to “make human rights a central part of his presidency.”

“The legacies of human rights abuses such as politically motivated arrests, torture, and unfair trials, will mar the Maldives’ human rights record if legislative reforms are delayed,” Amnesty noted, particularly the draft penal code which remains stalled in the parliament to this day.

“The new government must now end decades-long legacies of abuse of political power with no accountability for human rights violations such as politically motivated arrests, torture, and unfair trials,” Amnesty added, observing that human rights violations appeared to have “decreased significantly” in the last two years of Maumoon Abdul Gayoom’s 30 year administration.

Nasheed’s Press Secretary Mohamed Zuhair said today that Amnesty’s campaigning on behalf of the then political activist was vital in establishing his credibility with embassies and other international organisations, such at the UN’s Refugee Agency, which subsequently issued temporary travel documents to five Maldivian activists.

Amnesty’s campaigning on Nasheed’s behalf became especially invaluable after the office of the then opposition-in-exile in Colombo was raided by the Sri Lankan police, Zuhair explained.

“There was information sent by the Maldivian government that the MDP was storing illegal firearms in Colombo seeking to transfer them to the Maldives,” he said.

“Our office and houses were raided and I was roughly handled in front of my wife and children. The Colombo CID interrogated me about reports that we’d apparently been talking to pilots about doing the job, and at last these were proven to be false.”

Following the raid, four of the five political activists expressed doubt over their continued safety in Colombo and sought asylum in the UK. Of the five, Zuhair elected to remain in Sri Lanka “because I had faith in the Sri Lankan legal system, which was later [justified].”

Nasheed was detained in 2001 days after being elected to parliament, Zuhair noted, “on charges brought against him for petty theft from the demolished home of the former president, Ibrahim Nasir. These were mementos that were being thrown out as garbage, but he was thrown in jail on the pretext. The Minister of Home Affairs later acknowledged that nothing of value had been taken, after we argued in court that a price be fixed to the items.”

Nasheed was detained “on and off” 12 times, Zuhair said, and like many prisoners at the time, fell victim to institutionalised methods of punishment.

“He was handcuffed to his shins, and placed in a pillory (a series of hinged wooden boards locking the head and limbs from movement). He was also handcuffed to a hot generator for 14 days. In one instance, the guards mixed shards of glass into his food,” Zuhair claimed.

The credibility given by Amnesty to Nasheed as political prisoner allowed the opposition to organise outside the Maldives, Zuhair recalled, and pressured the introduction of greater human rights in the country.

“We are very grateful to them,” he said.

Amnesty’s current entry on the Maldives, last updated in May 2010, acknowledges ongoing concerns about parliament’s delay in enacting the draft penal code, and concern over the use of flogging as a punishment.

“An 18-year-old woman received 100 lashes on July 5, 2009 after being accused of having sex with two men outside marriage. Local journalists reported the woman fainted after being flogged and was taken to hospital for treatment,” Amnesty wrote.

“The woman, who was pregnant at the time of sentencing, had her punishment deferred until after the birth of her child. The court ruled the woman’s pregnancy was proof of her guilt. The men involved in the case were acquitted.”

In July 2010, Amnesty chided Nasheed’s government for the extra-judicial detention of opposition People’s Alliance (PA) MP Abdulla Yameen – Gayoom’s half-brother.

“The Maldives Government’s proposed reforms do have the potential to improve human rights protection, but this does not give them the right to arbitrarily detain opponents of those reforms. Instead, the government should seek international assistance to resolve this impasse,” Amnesty said at the time.

“There are fundamental flaws in the Maldives criminal justice system, leading to unfair trials. There is no unified definition of a criminal offence in the Maldivian law, which consists of acts of parliament, Shari’a edicts, and regulations passed by the ministries.”

The Maldives has since ascended to a seat on the UN Human Rights Council. Yet human rights concerns remain in the country about the efficacy of the criminal justice system, the prevalence of human trafficking – resulting in the country being placed on the US State Department’s tier two watch list – and an ongoing “culture of torture” the government has at times acknowledged continues to pervade both the police and prisons system.

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Comment: Will the real DRP please stand up?

The Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP), the main opposition party of Maldives held their last congress in February, 2010. During this congress there were two main lines of thought regarding electing their presidential candidate.

One group, led by Umar Naseer, proposed the presidential candidate should be elected through a party primary. The other group, led by the DRP council, proposed that such a primary was unnecessary and the leader of the party will be the party’s presidential candidate.

After much heated debate and talks during party meetings and local television, the issue was to be decided by the members of the party, at their upcoming congress. A vote was taken and more than 95 per cent of the attendees of the DRP congress voted in favour of the proposal made by the DRP council to make the elected leader of the party their presidential candidate.

The issue was solved. The presidential candidate of DRP would be its leader. This means Thasmeen will be the candidate from the DRP, for the 2013 presidential elections.

For a while it at least appeared to me, as an outside observer, that the debates were forgotten and everyone was working together. But as time passed, DRP started to show hints of a divide. Before long, the divide deepened and today DRP is split into two unequal parts. There is the main DRP under its leadership, and there is its “Z faction” as they now call themselves.

Z faction seems to be functioning under the leadership of Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, the former president of the Maldives. The letter Z in the name of this faction stands for Zaeem, an affectionate reference made to Gayyoom. Zaeem is an Arabic word, translated as ‘the honorary leader’. This honorary position was awarded by the DRP leadership to Gayyoom, who played a major role in founding DRP.

Gayyoom was thought to have resigned from politics for he announced his resignation in January 2010. So people expected him to spend his time away from the local political scenario. But if he did resign at that time, he seems to have re-entered politics and is now seen as an active member of the Z faction of DRP. Some even associate him as the reason why the Z faction was born.

Z faction, as the name indicates, is a faction of DRP. But on Saturday, after returning back to Male’ from a recent trip to India, Gayyoom announced that the Z faction of DRP is “the real DRP.”

My question is can this even be a legitimate faction? I think as long as they call it a faction of DRP, it cannot be legitimate before the DRP approves of its legitimacy. I don’t think the DRP will approve of its legitimacy because no matter what the supporters of Gayoom would like to call it, Z faction is formed of a rebellious group of DRP members.

The main leadership of DRP considers the Z faction as DRP members who do not accept decisions made by the party’s councils and committees. This is except for one person – Umar Naseer, whose name has been struck off the DRP membership register. Even though Umar Naseer and others who belong to the Z faction think Umar is still a deputy leader of DRP, DRP leadership considers him one of their ex-deputy leaders.

It is also worth noting here that most relatives of Gayyoom that I have seen on televised meetings of DRP are now seen in the frontline of the meetings held by the Z faction. So the Z faction is seen mainly as Gayoom, his relatives and supporters.

Representatives of a few minor political parties can be seen in the meetings held in the name of the Z faction of DRP. Many such meetings are solely or partially supported by the People’s Alliance (PA). PA’s leader, Yameen can be seen playing an active role in most of these meetings. Because of this and based on the comments made to local newspapers, until very recently, I was under the impression that Z faction is trying to promote Yameen as their presidential candidate. Like probably everyone else, I too was speculating. But now, I am thinking maybe I was wrong. I am now speculating that Z faction wants to bring Gayoom back as the president of this country.

Z faction has their own leadership which they selected only last week. I am not aware of how they chose their leadership. I only know that they announced the names of their leaders and council members. All of Gayyoom’s children hold posts in this newly announced leadership. This is not surprising to many of us because it is also widely speculated that Gayoom wants to create a dynasty. This will not be easy to achieve in the views of many political analysts.

Last Thursday night, Z faction held a meeting at the Artificial Beach. This was to publicly announce their leadership, amongst other things. In this meeting they tell us that Z faction holds the thinking of Gayoom. They also tell us that it is a democratic organisation. I cannot understand how it can be both. From what I understood, Z faction revolves around Gayyoom. How can an organisation that revolves around someone be democratic? If they love democracy so much, why did they split from the main DRP in the first place?

According to what they said, recently some of the council members of Z faction have even met foreign diplomats in Colombo, as the leading opposition party of the Maldives. They even discussed issues that are of national interest. I wonder what the foreign diplomats will think of this group. I also wonder whether they presented themselves as those belonging to a faction of DRP. If the members of Z faction met the diplomats, as members of DRP, then yes, they are indeed the leading opposition party. If they met as members of Z faction, I disagree.

Z faction is not a registered political party. Z faction is not DRP. Yet the members of this faction claim they are the “real DRP.” If they are the real DRP, why call it Z faction? Why not just DRP? For me, it appears that the Z faction is trying to highjack DRP and then bring a coup to it.

Even though the DRP congress decided that their presidential candidate will be their leader, in the minds of those belonging to Z faction, this issue has not been solved. Z faction does not want Thasmeen to be the presidential candidate from DRP. They want their favourite person to be the DRP presidential candidate. And because, under existing party regulations, this will not be possible, they have to search for an alternative means to do this. The result is the birth of Z faction.

Legitimate or not, the creation of Z faction has hit DRP hard. The biggest opposition party has not disintegrated but is weakened. All because one man wants to fulfil his dreams?

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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US Assistant Secretary of State urges opposition and government to cooperate on solving economic challenges

The US Assistant Secretary of State covering South Asia, Robert Blake, visited the Maldives yesterday during a tour of the region, and urged the government and the opposition to cooperate in finding a solution to the country’s economic challenges.

“As in many young democracies, the transition to a functioning system of checks and balances between different branches of government is very challenging,” Blake said.

Blake said that he had discussed with President Mohamed Nasheed the steps the Maldives was taking to try and stabilise the economy and reduce the budget deficit, and urged the opposition to involve itself in finding a solution.

“It is very important for them to come together and for [the opposition] to come up with an alternative – if they have an alternative – and negotiate an agreed plan. It is most important to continue momentum, reduce the deficit and put the economy on a firmer financial footing, while at the same time continuing the process of strengthening democracy.

“I encourage the government and opposition to work to together to try and tackle the prblems the Maldives is facing. Even in an older and more established democracy such as our own, politicians can find it difficult to work together across party lines in a spirit of fairness and bipartisanship, for the sake of governing well. But when they do, everybody benefits.”

Blake said he was encouraged during his meeting with the President that Nasheed had “reaffirmed his commitment to freedom of assembly”, and noted that despite the country’s political “growing pains”, “the Maldives’ international influence far exceeds its size, particularly in multilateral organisations such as the UN and its human rights council.”

He thanked Nasheed for the Maldives’ votes concerning Syria, Libya and Iran, and noted that he had “become one of he world’s leading climate change advocates, with a flair for drawing attention to the critical impact climate change is having on island nations.”

US-Maldives cooperation extended to visits by figures from the US legislature, student exchange programs, visiting American Muslim speakers, and military collaboration on security and training, he noted. Blake suggested further cooperation with the new Maldives National University, with faculty visiting from US universities.

Blake also spoke briefly on the successful US assassination of Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan, explaining the State Department’s decision to issue a worldwide caution for American citizens.

“I think difficult to predict [the reaction],” he said. “It is reasonable to assume that Al-Qaeda will try to retaliate for the loss of its leader, and we wanted to make sure people were aware of this development, especially in areas where there is already anti-American sentiment.”

Blake left for Sri Lanka last night, visiting USAID-supported programs and meeting with local leaders in Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu.

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Journalist, 14 year-old boy and senile old man among Guantánamo detainees, leaked dossiers reveal

A trove of over 750 US military dossiers on Guantánamo detainees leaked to international media, including the New York Times and the Guardian, have revealed that many inmates were kept incarcerated for years on flimsy evidence, or information extracted under torture.

Many incarcerated were victims of circumstance, including an 89 year-old Afghan villager suffering from senile dementia who had “suspicious phone numbers” in his house, a 14 year-old kidnap victim “with possible knowledge of local Taliban leaders”, and a journalist for al-Jazeera.

The latter was imprisoned for six years during which time he was interrogated “on the al-Jazeera news network’s training programme, telecommunications equipment, and news-gathering operations in Chechnya, Kosovo and Afghanistan.”

The documents also include a summary of evidence against former Maldivian Guantánamo detainee Ibrahim Fauzee, dated 2004.

According to the document, Fauzee was arrested in Pakistan while he was living in “a suspected al Qaida safehouse.” His telephone number was “ found in terrorist detainees’ pocket litter”, and “the detainee’s point of contact telephone number was associated with a Sudanese teacher who assisted Arabs traveling to training camps in Afghanistan.”

Fauzee was subsequently released and transferred to the Maldives on March 11, 2005, where he now heads the Islamic Foundation NGO.

The documents also reveal that that US authorities privately listed the Pakistani Intelligence Service (ISI) as a terrorist organisation alongside groups such as al-Qaida, Hamas and Hezbollah, and that US authorities relied heavily on evidence obtained under torture from a small number of detainees.

Other indicators used as an assessment of terrorist potential included possession of a Casio F-91W digital watch, which “was known to be given to the students at al-Qaida bomb-making training courses in Afghanistan [during] which the students received instruction in the preparation of timing devices using the watch.”

US President Barak Obama vowed to close the controverisal military prison but has been unable to transfer the remaining 172 detainees. The Maldives was last year in negotiations to accept several inmates, with leaked diplomatic cables revealing that the country was offered US$85,000 to assist with the “resettlement expenses” of an inmate.

Those who remain include the severely-tortured, informers requiring protection, and group of Chinese Uighur minority Muslims.

The leaked dossiers are among hundreds of thousands leaked to Wikileaks last year, allegedly by US soldier Bradley Manning, who remains in custody.

In a response to the Guardian, the Pentagon criticised the release of the documents, claiming that “the situation with the Guantánamo detention facility is exceptionally complex and releasing any records will further complicate ongoing actions.”

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Foreign Ministry drafting prisoner exchange legislation

Foreign Minister Ahmed Naseem has revealed that the government is working on prisoner exchange legislation in the hopes of repatriating 12 Maldivian nationals currently serving sentences overseas.

Local laws, Naseem told Haveeru, currently “don’t allow inmates, held in overseas prisons, to be transferred to the Maldives in order to complete their sentences. We cannot allow them in without making sure that they complete their sentences in the Maldives. That is only possible if the Maldives judiciary allows inmates to complete their sentence, handed in a foreign country, in Maldivian prisons.”

The Foreign Ministry said Maldivians were imprisoned in six countries.

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Nihan renews calls for Nasheed no-confidence motion as DRP factional strife intensifies

Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) MP Ahmed Nihan renewed calls for a no-confidence motion against President Mohamed Nasheed, during a rally on Friday.

Nihan said the motion, which requires 25 signatures from MPs to be put before parliament and a two-third majority vote to be passed, was in response to an increase in problems such as gang violence and the dollar shortage.

“Galaxy Enterprises can no longer sell air tickets because of the dollar shortage, and I received at least 20 desperate calls last night from people needing medical treatment who are suddenly unable to travel to Colombo. The public is very unhappy,” Nihan said.

“I strongly believe the opposition should seriously consider this motion because the President is ignoring problems. There is inflation, and people are in a mess and getting reckless,” he said, claiming that Nasheed had been “lying to the country over the extent of the problem.”

The government, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), have contended that a key contributor to the dollar shortage is the high spend on civil servant salaries in rufiya relative to its dollar income.

The government hopes a reform of the tax system, including a business profit tax and a tourism goods and services tax – delayed in parliament and passed only late last year – will eventually increase its income, but contests that political obstacles prevent it from reducing the size of the civil service.

Nihan acknowledged that while the civil service was “quite large”, blaming it for the dollar shortage was “just an excuse”.

“This country has survived for the last decade as a well-governed country. There was no problem getting dollars on this scale, only now due to mismanagement,” Nihan claimed.

He also acknowledged that even with 25 signatures, the no-confidence motion was unlikely to get the two-thirds majority required to oust Nasheed. It was, he claimed, an attempt “to get the President to take notice of the problems people are facing.”

The brief resignation of Nasheed’s cabinet in July 2010 was in part prompted by letters from six ruling party MPs who claimed they had been offered bribes by the opposition to vote against the party line. As the opposition parties already have a majority in parliament, this was widely interpreted as an attempt to secure a two-thirds majority to remove the President.

Nasheed promptly arrested the respective leaders of the minority opposition Jumhoree and People’s Alliance parties, businessman Gasim Ibrahim and the former President’s half brother Abdulla Yameen, and charged them with treason and bribery.

No charges stuck in court, and Nasheed was eventually pressured by the international community to release Yameen from his “protective” extrajudicial detention on the Presidential Retreat of on Aarah.

The possibility of the Dhivehi gaining a two-thirds majority is particularly unlikely given the recent fracturing of the party into factions loyal to either former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom or the DRP’s leader Ahmed Thasmeen Ali. Gayoom had endorsed Thasmeen as his successor on his retirement from politics early last year, but cemented his disapproval of Thasmeen’s performance with an open letter faulting his leadership and particularly the party’s dismissal of Deputy leader Umar Naseer, ostentiously for conducting protests without party approval.

During a rally on Thursday, Thasmeen told the press that he could not stand aside and watch when the internal dispute has reached the point where “the people are not sure what the DRP is.”

“When a rally is announced, it’s not clear who is calling for it,” he said. “A person dismissed from the party is using the party’s logo and giving press conferences as the party’s deputy leader.”

As the factional strife has reached “the limit where we can’t remain without taking measures,” Thasmeen said he would bring the matter to the party’s council seeking a decision.

Meanwhile Riyaz Rasheed, the sole DQP MP in parliament, participated in the Gayoom faction rally for the first time, despite the recent coalition agreement between the Dhivehi Qaumee Party (DQP) and Thasmeen’s faction. The party’s existing coalition partner, Yameen’s PA, supports Gayoom.

At the Thasmeen faction rally at Immadhudheen School, speakers strongly criticised Umar Naseer for “disregarding the party’s charter.”

Leading the attack, Deputy Leader Ali Waheed argued that the opposing faction consisted of “presidential candidates who couldn’t get 3,000 votes (Umar) and leaders of parties with less than 3,000 people (Yameen),” and accused them of hijacking the DRP’s membership base.

“These people are holding rallies in DRP’s name because it has 40,000 members. Why won’t they hold a rally in their the name of their own party?”

The Gayoom faction was “obsessed with the DRP” because “when the time comes, it’s the DRP that has the ace of spades,” Waheed said.

“But what they don’t know is that we’re not playing cards,” said Waheed. “We’re playing joker. God willing, we will put down the joker and win the presidential election. When you’re playing joker, the ace of spades isn’t that important.”

Waheed argued that rallies held by Gayoom faction were “in truth Yameen Abdul Gayoom’s presidential campaign.”

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Comment: Politics and religion

As the heady winds of revolution sweep across the Middle East, a startling moment last week proved to be a sobering eye-opener.

Former IAEA chief and Nobel Laureate Mohamed El-Baradei had to retreat from the polling booth without casting his vote after a crowd of Islamists threw stones at him.

It marks the precise moment when realisation hit global media outlets that the Egyptian revolution, which was fueled almost entirely by educated, liberal and non-ideologically driven youth, has been hijacked by Islamists.

Some might argue that with 77 percent of voters in favour of the referendum, which El-Baradei opposed, democracy has clearly spoken and that the issue merits no further discussion. But in fact, it needs more scrutiny than ever.

Who watches the watchmen?

On the walls of Cairo, posters signed by the Muslim Brotherhood were put up declaring that it was the ‘spiritual obligation’ for all Muslims to vote in favour of the referendum, which many believe gives the Brotherhood – the only organised opposition – a strong edge in short term elections. It is an outcome that many secular Egyptians, and the large Coptic Christian minority in Egypt are loathe to see.

In each of those posters lies one of the most crucial questions of our times – can democracy survive under the shadow of Islamism?

Democracy, by its very nature, relies on the ability of a population to use its free will and judgment to make informed decisions. When the writing on the wall literally ordains the faithful to vote in a particular fashion, upon no less an authority than God himself, whence lies the free will of the people?

There’s an inherent conflict of interest when an Islamist party enjoins upon the people, by invoking the name of God, to vote in a manner most suitable to its own political ambitions.

Nevertheless, Muslim democrats have, time and again, failed to challenge the Mullah on the impropriety of his partaking in politics on the platform of religion.

In what is an affront to both religion and democracy, deep issues of faith and morality, with their strong emotive underpinnings, have ended up as mere political tools for manipulating crowds and gathering votes.

The ramifications of this convenient marriage between politics and religion are not hard to spot.

With the Arab freedom movements engulfing it from all sides – Syria in the north, Yemen in the South, Bahrain in the east, and Egypt, Tunisia and Libya in the west – a frantic Saudi Arabian interior ministry was quick to pull out the preemptive religion card.

The Saudi state media carried the following statement:

“The Council of Senior Clerics affirms that demonstrations are forbidden in this country. The correct way in sharia of realising common interest is by advising, which is what the Prophet Mohammad established… Reform and advice should not be via demonstrations and ways that provoke strife and division, this is what the religious scholars of this country in the past and now have forbidden and warned against.”

It is disingenuous at best for the Wahhabi-monarchy nexus in Saudi Arabia to claim that Islam forbids protests against a ruler, considering the Saudi monarchy itself was established by a series of conquests beginning with a pan-Arab revolt against no less an authority than the Islamic Caliphate.

The enormous utility of religion as a political tool was reaffirmed by the Taliban’s strong run in Afghanistan, imposing one of the harshest theocracies in recent memory.

Democracy is all but lost in Pakistan as well, where at least two senior politicians have recently been murdered in broad daylight for refusing to toe the line of the hard line clergy that wields influence over an increasingly radicalised Pakistani society.

Misuse of religion also remains the predominant political gimmick in the Maldives.

Former President of the Republic, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, had no qualms about asserting himself as guardian of the faith, constantly hammering in the notion that the ‘100% Muslim’ nation’s cultural identity was defined entirely by its religious homogeneity which had to be protected against ever-present, invisible threats – an assertion that has put a paranoid Maldives in the list of top ten countries of the World noted for religious intolerance, according to a study by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life in 2009.

Outlandish theories brimming with conspiracy have found a mainstream foothold in the Maldives, with self-proclaimed “religious” groups protesting for weeks against a visit by Israeli “Zionist organ-stealing” doctors, displaying a fanatic zeal rarely before seen in public and certainly never exhibited for causes like rampant pedophilia and child abuse.

Highly-charged religious rhetoric permeates issues ranging from education to foreign policy; politicians privately admit to being unable to vote on bills in Parliament on merit, because of the guaranteed backlash from the clergy class.

The already indistinct line between fanatic militants recruiting youth in the islands, and the intolerant ideologues openly preaching on public podiums is increasingly blurred.

In one episode, the Maldivian government website of the Ministry of Islamic Affairs posted an article declaring the Haiti earthquake, where 316,000 people lost their lives and a million were left homeless, as the ‘wrath of God’ showered upon a deserving, wicked people.

The danger with that kind of rhetoric is, of course, that it creates a loophole where any Tom, Dick and Harry can – and will – assume the high seat of arrogance and presumption from which they unravel the divine reasoning behind everything from natural calamities to personal tragedies.

Following a report on the recent tragedy in Male’, where two women lost their lives in a fire that engulfed their home, a commentator was quick to ascribe it to ‘the wrath of God’, insinuating the deceased were deviants who deserved their tragic end, simply because he disagreed with their lifestyle.

Me Tarzan, You infidel

In the heydays of the reform movement in the Maldives, the pro-government media regularly depicted opposition leaders as Christian missionaries bent on destroying Islam.

Similarly, opposition propaganda channels exploited the religious insecurities of the public by presenting the ruling party as depraved alcoholics and homosexuals.

One political party with religious affectations, the Adhaalath Party, even took the former President – a religious scholar – to court on apostasy charges.

There appears to be not a single political party in the Maldives that has not indulged in the cheap political abuse of religion by abandoning discussions of governance and policy in favour of petty fear-mongering and emotive politics.

In this atmosphere of whipped up religious paranoia, a book by former Attorney General Hassan Saeed and Professor Abdullah Saeed of Melbourne University, titled ‘Freedom of Religion, Apostasy and Islam’ was banned in June 2008, amid accusations that Hassan Saeed would introduce freedom of religion if elected to power.

At the time, Hassan Saeed reportedly responded by claiming the ban was a “cowardly Act driven by a 30 year-long leadership that has made Islam as a political tool.”

That moment of lucidity, however, proved to be short-lived. Following a viewer poll on national TV regarding religious freedom in December 2009, Hassan Saeed’s own party repeated, almost verbatim, the exact same allegations against the present government – accusing it of attempting to import “other religions” into the country to “undermine Islam”.

In the first week of March 2011, the opposition-allied political party People’s Alliance (PA) accused the government of following the agenda set by ‘Zionist Jews’, and mentioned ‘irreligious’ people in the government.

The next week, MDP MP Ahmed Rasheed invoked the scriptures when calling for an amendment to the Clemency Act to uphold the death penalty.

The bill was co-sponsored by Independent MP Muttalib who has in the past found time to introduce bills of such national importance as rescinding the right of resident foreigners to worship in the privacy of their bedrooms – while crucial bills like the Evidence Act continue to be delayed.

Another MP further argued that even the country’s requisite Foreign Policy could be gleamed from a single verse in the holy book.

Gag Orders

As with other countries, religion, in the hands of politicians, has transcended its spiritual role, and entered the domain of fear in the Maldives.

The rhetoric of the Mullah has reached a point where the media – the fourth pillar of democracy and defender of free speech – has spinelessly retreated into a shell of self-censorship and servitude.

Articles mildly critical of Islamists have been retracted after being published. Websites critical of Islamist parties have quietly been banned. Lifestyle magazines have been forcibly shut down after relentless harassment and intimidation from pseudo-religious groups, while authorities conveniently turn a blind eye.

The prevailing climate of fear prevents legitimate questions about the involvement of ‘religious’ NGOs in terrorist activities, and their role in promoting violent rhetoric, child abuse and abuse of women from being widely asked.

The few remaining liberals who dare raise these issues are confronted with reactions that range from the bizarre to the comedic.

In May 2010, the Adhaalath Party posted an article on its website with the fantastic claim that Minivan News was promoting ‘lesbianism’ and ‘national sissyness’.

The incredible claim, unfortunately, is symptomatic of a society where discussions are quickly ended by painting feminists as ‘lesbians’ and unilaterally declaring secular opponents as ‘atheists’ and ‘Zionists’ – a society characterised by paranoia, fear-mongering and dysfunction in the name of religion. In other words, a society where democracy cannot survive.

Each of the stones thrown at Mohamed El-Baradei represents an attempt to silence critique, to overwhelm reason with violence, to suppress disagreement with intimidation, an attempt to abort democracy in the womb.

One prays for the sake of Egypt’s rich civilization that their hopes for democracy do not get consumed by the petty fires set by self-appointed representatives of God.

The ancient Nile, after all, bears witness to a long chain of mortals who assumed the mantle of religion, only to end up mistaking themselves for God.

The Indian Ocean doesn’t.

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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Maldives celebrates International Women’s Day

The Maldives celebrated the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day yesterday evening at a function jointly organised by the UNFPA and NGO Thirees Nuvaeh.

Speakers included the country’s first female MP and former Health Minister Aneesa Ahmed, serving MP Eva Abdulla, Sheikh Mohamed Qubadh Abubakru and Savithri Goonesekara, Emeritus Professor of Law at the University of Colombo in Sri Lanka.

UNFPA Country Lene Christiansen observed that women in the Maldives carried a lot of responsibility, with the country having of the highest ratios of female-led households in the world at 47 percent. Half of the time this was due to migration of the spouse for work, and in one in six cases, because of the divorce or death of the spouse, she explained.

However female unemployment was three times higher than for men, she noted, and had a mere six percent representation in parliament. In addition, a third of women aged 15-49 had reported suffering physical or sexual violence.

Christiansen also noted the rising practice of home schooling of girls, “which denies them access to the school system including higher level education, and restricts other opportunities in life.”

“The constitution upholds gender equality and non discrimination, but in reality women are disadvantaged and cannot participate in economic and political activities,” she said.

Civil society had a crucial role to play as “a watchdog” for women’s rights, and in ensuring that politicians were held accountable to the female half of their constituencies.

Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) MP Eva Abdulla claimed that the Maldives’ newfound freedom of expression, which many women had fought for, was now being misused “to attack and demean women in the name of religion.”

Instead, Abdulla said, “Islam is the religion that taught us to respect our mothers and our women above all else.”

“We have been reluctant to address this issue head on. Women have been under constant attack for two years and we have not been able to counter it – we simply don’t have confidence [do to so],” she said.

Equality was, she said, about ensuring women had equal access to opportunity – something that had not happened despite the efforts of women to bring about democracy and human rights in the Maldives.

“A lot of women were involved in the last five years of the democratic movement,” Abdulla said, “but [afterwards], men inherited all the jobs.”

In her speech, Goonesekara emphasised that “women in the West had to fight for aspirations for equal life chances and for their rights a century ago. They struggled for the right to vote, to work, and for safe and fair conditions of work and employment.”

The origin of women’s day stemmed from working women, she said, who united after a fire in a US garment factory at the turn of the 20th century that killed 146 women.

“We have to remind ourselves that we are members of the international community,” she said, “and sometimes in our countries our own traditions and governance are seen as something different from those of the international community. But we live in a connected world and are bound by principles of the UN charter on human rights.”

“Equality,” she said, “is a much misunderstood word, but it is precisely about giving women equal life chances and sharing the world with men.”

The event concluded with entertainment including Boduberu/Dhigudhandi by Villigili and Hura Groups, Dhivehi Peoms, Bandhi, Raivaru, and Buzura Dance.

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Government attempting to implement agenda “of Zionist Jews”, alleges PA

The opposition’s coalition partner, the People’s Alliance (PA), has publicly accused the Maldivian government of trying to implement the agenda of “Zionist Jews”.

In a statement published in Dhivehi on the party’s website, the PA, led by the half brother of the former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, Abdulla Yameen, claimed that “the UK, France and the US are selecting individuals from Islamic countries, whom they want to be the ruler, and are training them to implement Jewish policy.”

The PA claimed that “many influential figures in the current government are irreligious people and have shown ideas and actions that prove they were trained in the UK.

“This government commenced the work to pave way for other religions to disrupt religious unity,” alleged the PA. “When the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) came in to administration, they brought in foreign persons previously deported for conducting Christian missionary work, and gave them high positions in government.”

The PA also accused the government of attacking judges, disregarding the judiciary, trying to permit the sale of pork and alcohol on inhabited islands, introduce co-education, teach other religions, and attempting to build a church in the Maldives.

President Mohamed Nasheed’s Press Secretary Mohamed Zuhair condemned the party’s misuse of Islam for political purposes.

“Their remarks suggest that the PA interprets the government’s refrain from Jew-bashing as an agenda of hatred,” he said. “If they see the moderate Islamic policies of this government as anti-Islamic, then I have no further comment.”

He noted that the PA had boycotted the President’s address on the opening of Parliament, “but was then concerned enough about it to issue a statement in response.”

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