Tag: salaf president

Salaf sends immigration list of alleged missionaries deported by former government

Religious NGO Jamiyyathul Salaf has sent a letter addressed to the Immigration Controller requesting further information on expats who were deported during the previous administration, most of them for alleged missionary activity.

In their letter, Salaf requested the immigration department clarify why some of the deported alleged missionaries were missing from the immigration’s black list, and asked the department to clarify whether the issue was acted upon and when the deported expats were removed from the black list.

The letter, published by Salaf on its website, contained names of people “most of whom were deported for alleged missionary  activity,’’ claimed the NGO’s president Abdulla Bin Mohamed Ibrahim.

“We confirmed the names and the information we have, it is from very relevant sources,’’ said Abdulla. “They were deported by the previous government and we want to know why they were removed from the black list, and when they were removed from the list.’’

Immigration Controller Ilyas Ibrahim said it was the power and duty of the immigration to look after such matters, and that Salaf was “not in a position to raise questions over the department’s duties and responsibilities.”

”They can go to the courts if they wish,” said Ilyas. ”No person on our watch list will enter the country, and if we allow them in, it means that either their deportation period is over or they were granted clemency.”

He repeated that no person on the immigration department watch list would enter the country.

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PA claims senior government officials “are not very religious”

People’s Alliance (PA) Leader and MP Abdulla Yameen has claimed that the senior officials of the government are “not very religious”, during a rally to celebrate the day the Maldives embraced Islam.

Secretary General of the PA, Ahmed Shareef, also claimed the government was not interested in religion and had done “many things to weaken Islam in the country.”

”Last year during Ramadan the government allowed non-muslims to eat in day time,” Shareef said,”and they disbanded women’s mosques.”

He said the government had also dismissed many Imams from their position, “and gave away the land belonging to the Kulliyathu Dhiraasathul Islamiyya school,” he added, when it was brought under the Maldives College of Higher Education.

”They also discussed the building of temples in the country and selling alcohol on inhabited islands,” he said.

Press Secretary for the President’s Office Mohamed Zuhair said the claims were untrue.

”The government has done many things to strengthen and protect Islam in the country,” Zuhair said.

He said the government’s policy was to leave all the religious issues to Islamic scholars.

”As we are not religious scholars we always leave religious issues to the religious scholars,” he said, pointing to new freedoms given to scholars.

“Yameen is not a religious scholar,” he added.

Spokesperson for Maldivian Democratic Party MDP Ahmed Haleem said the government had always tried to protect Islam in the Maldives.

”It’s a fact that the government has never arrested a religious scholar, unlike the former government,” Haleem said.

Haleem claimed the former government arrested more than 20 religious scholars after their sermons.

”I never knew that Abdulla Yameen was so religious,” Haleem said. “Maybe in the future we will see him at the mosque with a long beard and short trousers.”

Sheikh Abdulla Jameel said in his view Islam in the Maldives “has become very strong”, particularly among young people “who are now very interested in Islam.”

”I have noted that the number of people going to the mosques has also raised,” he said.

He said he believed this had happening because the government’s efforts to promote the role of religion in people’s hearts.

”The new government allows scholars to give sermons as they wish,” he said.

President of Islamic NGO Jamiyyath-al-Salaf, Sheikh Abdullah Bin Mohamed Ibrahim, said the group did not wish to comment on issue.

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