Tag: Sun Online

HarperCollins confirms Maldives not being erased from Times Atlas as global warming statement

The Maldivian government has written to the editor of the UK’s Telegraph newspaper seeking “clarification and apology” for a satirical article claiming that the Maldives was to be erased from the Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World as a statement on global warming.

The article, by climate skeptic James Deringpole, cited a fictitious spokesperson from Times Atlas as implying that the Maldives’ position on climate change was “a publicity stunt, cooked up by green activist Mark Lynas, to blackmail the international community into giving the Maldives more aid money while simultaneously trying to lure green Trustafarians to come and spend £1500 a night in houses on stilts with gold-plated organic recyclable eco-toilets made of rare earth minerals from China.”

In a letter to the Telegraph’s Editor, Tony Gallagher, Acting High Commissioner Ahmed Shiian wrote that “to suggest, even in satire, that the plight of our country in the face of sea-level rise is simply some kind of con-trick to raise guilt money from the international community is despicable and hurtful to all of us, whose country is indeed one of the most vulnerable on Earth to global warming.”

Shiian added that Delingpole’s “leaden attempts at humour” had  already had “unfortunate political consequences in the Maldives”, after his invented quotes from a Times Atlas spokesperson “were reported as fact in the Maldives media, and the opposition party of the former dictatorship has used this to accuse the President of undermining the country and national pride.”

Minivan News yesterday contacted the publisher of the Times Atlas, HarperCollins, which confirmed that the story was bogus.

“Of course we have no plans to erase the Maldives, Tuvalu or major parts of Bangladesh from the next edition,” a spokesperson told Minivan News, also confirming that the spokesperson cited by Deringpole was not a HarperCollins employee.

“Like the rest of the piece, he is a fiction,” she said.

Major media outlets in the Maldives, including Haveeru, Miadhu and Sun Online, continued to carry the story this morning, although Haveeru had amended its version to reference “unconfirmed reports”.

The stories generated strong sentiment among the many who commented on it, with many blaming President Nasheed for the underwater cabinet meeting which had led to the Maldives “being wiped off the map”.

A senior source in the President’s Office told Minivan News that the story had stirred up strong sentiments and now the perception risked running ahead of the reality.

“It is hugely irresponsible journalism not to acknowledge when you’ve made a mistake. Standard procedure all over the world is to do a retraction,” the source said.

Editor of Sun Online and President of the Maldives Journalists Association (MJA), Ahmed Hiriga Zahir, told Minivan News that he had edited Sun’s story and was under the impression that it was genuine.

“I didn’t thoroughly check the original,” he acknowledged, “but I did read the Maldivian media. Why would the [UK] media report it [incorrectly]? I think the original media should correct it. If the Maldivian media reported it and they know it is not the truth, they should also correct it,” he added.

Press Secretary for the President, Mohamed Zuhair, said the government was approaching the Broadcasting Commission and the Maldives Media Council asking it “to insist the mainstream media be responsible, and not to take silly blogs as mainstream news.”

Zuhair said he suspected the media had “deliberately misinterpreted” the story to mislead the public and generate anti-government sentiment.

“Many of these outlets were the government organs of yesteryear, and many of their journalists have not reconciled themselves with the days when they were calling the current President a vagabond and a terrorist,” Zuhair said.

“Presenting this story as serious news is misleading, and people have been misled – they are calling up the morning radio programs concerned that the Maldives has been taken off the map. The media should be responsible and publish a retraction, but I doubt they will do it – you can wake up a person who is asleep, but you can’t wake up a person who is pretending to be asleep.”

MP for former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom’s new political party, the Progressive Party of the Maldives (PPM) Ahmed Mahlouf, yesterday sent out a mass text message informing people of the supposed decision to erase the Maldives from the map, blaming President Mohamed Nasheed for holding the underwater cabinet meeting and ”erasing the country, erasing religion and erasing the people.”

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Media Council calls on Sun editors to publicly apologise for brothel journalism

The Maldives Media Council (MMC) has called on the editors of Sun Online and Sun magazine to issue a public apology following the publication of a series of stories in which journalists wrote detailed and lurid accounts of their visit to an illegal brothel.

The articles, which now rank as ‘most viewed’ on the Sun Online website, followed three reporters on an ‘undercover’ operation in which they solicited sex from women in massage parlours.

‘’The context of the articles published on Sun Online investigating illegal prostitution in the Maldives contained phrasing suggesting that the journalists may have engaged in ‘sinful’ activities, and were written in such a way as to encourage these activities,” said the MMC.

The MMC claimed the articles violated its media code of ethics, including Article 1 which states that no media should publish anything against the constitution or Islam, and article 9 which stipulates that media should not publish pornography, sex stories, stories that encourage sex or anything that describes such activities.

‘’While it is the responsibility of journalists to research and report on unacceptable things that occur, the media should obtain information and report it accordingly to the religion of Islam, public order and in a way that does not undermine the dignity or professionalism of the Maldivian media,’’ the MMC said.

The Sun’s investigation of illegal prostitution in the Maldives revealed that ‘massage’ and medical treatment centers were being used a front for Male’s sex industry.

The Sun journalists who patronised the salons had ‘massages’ and reported that illegal prostitution was conducted widely and freely inside such places.

Some salons offered them group sex, while most  provided a list of available girls with ‘special features’ for different prices.

Executive Editor of Sun Online Ahmed ‘Hiriga’ Zahir said the company was unwilling to comment pending the police investigation, after the MMC forward the case to the Prosecutor General yesterday.

However Sun magazine editor Shinan Ali said the company was prepared to issue a public apology “as the MMC is the media’s governing authority.”

“We will look into the context and the way we reported the issue,” he said, but noted that he was not surprised at the response to the article.

“As the Maldives Journalists Association (MJA) has said, this kind of reporting is new to the community and we need to get used to it.”

Ali said he was “really proud” of the journalists involved and what they had reported. The articles did not explicitly state that they had engaged in illegal activity, he noted.

“We are a 100 percent Muslim society and our journalists are Muslim, and they should not be exposed to this kind of illegal activity – this is the reason why they did not state this directly.”

The focus on the journalists was “sidelining the real issue,” Ali said, observing that explicit material was already readily available in the form of songs and TV shows.

“But these illegal things are happening every hour in our own society, and we need to talk about them. Readers need to get used to this kind of reporting,” he said.

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Step-father accused of abusing three step-daughters

A Lhaviyani Naifaru man has been accused by his wife of abusing her three daughters, aged three, eight and nine.

Speaking to Sun Online on her way back to her home island, the woman recounted how she confronted her husband when she found him kneeling naked in front of her sleeping daughters one night, but he had denied the accusations.

However upon questioning her daughters she came to know the abuse has been going for the duration of their three-month old marriage, prompting her to flee to Male’ and report the abuse to police.

Doctors have confirmed that the three girls sustained varying levels of injuries in the abuse, she said, while the three-year-old is suffering urinary problems because of the abuse.

Read full story here (in Dhivehi).

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