Tag: us state department

US challenges Maldives’ prosecution of terror suspects, among concerns over rising radicalisation

The US State Department has reported there were no successful prosecutions of suspected terror suspects during 2011 in the Maldives, and raised wider concerns about the potential radicalisation of young people from the country in foreign madrassas.

According to the US government’s recently published “Country Reports on Terrorism 2011”, the Maldives was viewed to have “severely limited” legislation to prosecute alleged cases of terrorism and extremism in the country’s courts.

While the Maldives government said it was presently looking to address several security and terrorist threats, such as piracy and organised crime, through existing legislation and proposed legal amendments, it moved to deny any truth in claims Maldivian citizens were being radicalised at Pakistan-based madrassas.

President’s Office spokesperson Abbas Adil Riza said that the government was presently collecting information in regards to the issue of radicalisation in the country.  He stressed active steps had been taken against permitting clearance for local students to study in any madrassas in the country.

“No Maldivians right now are being trained in Pakistani madrassas.  Steps are being taken to ensure this with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and authorities in Pakistan,” he said. “We will not issue visas to go there in this regard. So to say that such a threat exists is definitely not true.”

Key threats

In addressing other key threats to the nation, Abbas claimed that the incursion of pirates from Somalia into the Maldives’ territories on two reported occasions, as well as human trafficking resulting from organised crime were seen as “particular dangers”.

“The threat we currently face from pirates and traffickers is being dealt with via existing legislation, as well as some new amendments that have presently been proposed in parliament,” he said.

Abbas said the new government had not opted to make any drastic changes to existing counter-terror policy enacted under former President Mohamed Nasheed’s administration.

“We will not be making a 180 degree reversal on the last government’s stance,” he said, adding that a focus on further legislation would be sought under President Dr Mohamed Waheed Hassan.

US State Department view

According to the US State Department, the American government was partnering with Maldivian counterparts in attempts to “strengthen” law enforcement in the Indian Ocean nation.  The US was also said to back establishing community outreach schemes based around countering terrorist ideologies, as the state department stressed alleged radicalism remained a concern in the Maldives.

“The government believes that hundreds of young Maldivians attended madrassas in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, and was concerned that these students were bringing home radical ideology,” stated the report. Two Maldivians, in separate instances in March and October, were arrested in Sri Lanka on charges linked to terrorism. Their cases were pending at year’s end.”

One of the suspects, Mohamed Ameen, was released from police custody in May ths year by the criminal court after it did not issue an extension to his detention period.

Local media reported that the suspect was released by the court “on the condition that he not get involved in any further terrorist activities, and not leave the country.”

Beyond legislation, the report also pointed to the signing of an agreement signed with Malaysia-based IT group Nexbis to install a new border control system with an integrated database in an effort to try and combat human trafficking into the country.

“However, alleged corruption concerns and subsequent legal proceedings made it unclear when the system would be installed,” the report stated.

The Maldives was last month included on the US State Department’s Tier Two Watch List for Human Trafficking for a third year in a row.

The US State Department added that the Maldives, during 2011, had become a partner in its Antiterrorism Assistance programme focused on training in areas such as “counterterrorism leadership”, as well as regional cooperation with other authorities.

The report also noted the Maldives inclusion in the regional Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering, where it had been submitting annual updates on its work.

“Maldives underwent a mutual evaluation conducted by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the final evaluation report was adopted by the members in July 2011.  Maldivian law does not criminalize money laundering apart from a small provision in the Drugs Act. The Maldives Financial Intelligence Unit took the lead in drafting an Anti-Money Laundering and Combating Financing of Terrorism act with assistance from the IMF,” the report stated.

“The draft bill was sent to the Attorney General’s Office in July 2010 and was sent back to the Maldives Police Services and the prosecutor general for review and comment. In July 2011, Maldives Financial Transactions Reporting came into effect, which aims to safeguard Maldives financial and payment systems from being used to promote acts of terrorism and money laundering, and to protect financial services and products from being used to conceal the proceeds of crime.”

According to the state department, the UN 1267/1989 and 1988 consolidated lists detailing individuals or entities with associations to the Taliban and al-Qa’ida had also been sent to the Maldives Monetary Authority (MMA) through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The MMA was said to have instructed banks creditors to then take acton on the matter with a set time frame, according to the report.

As part of the US State Department’s findings during 2011, recognition was also given to efforts made by the Maldives government to pursue intiatives and mechanisms designed to counter “violent extremism”.

“The Ministry of Islamic Affairs implemented a programme designed to mobilise religious and social leaders to work against all forms of violence in society, including religious extremism that leads to violence,” stated the report. “The Ministry conducted over 15 seminars and workshops for religious leaders, educators, and local government officials. Several of these workshops included participants from across the country.

“Ideological problems”

Islamic Affairs Minister Sheikh Mohamed Shaheem Ali Saeed said in June that he was seeking to counter the “ideological problems” of extremism in the country.

Shaheem claimed that the threat of home-grown terrorism was a key issue needing to be addressed in the Maldives – something he alleged the previous government under former President Nasheed had neglected to assist with through funding.

“The previous government did not give us the budget we needed to run programmes to address these issues,” he said at the time. “There are problems here with extremism and terrorism, these are idealogical problems that need to be targeted through religious awareness campaigns.”

Shaheem himself previously served under the Nasheed government as Islamic State Minister before resigning in December 2010 over differences of opinion with the administration over issues such as claims it was strengthening links with Israel.

However, the now opposition Maldvian Democratic Party (MDP) – to which Nasheed remains the current presidential candidate – was sceptical of the commitments of religious figures attached to the Waheed administration. It contends the government came to power on February 7 in a “coup d’etat”.

Party Spokesperson and MP Hamid Abdul Ghafoor claimed that with the MDP failing to recognise the legitimacy of the current government, the same was true for ministerial appointments like Sheikh Shaheem.

Ghafoor also alleged that issues such as Islamic fundamentalism were a well established tool used during the 30 year rule of former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom to pit different factions in the country against each other, something he believed was once again happening with the present government.

“I see Shaheem as a just a little cog inserted into the larger machine of Gayoom’s political control,” he said.

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Maldives on Tier 2 Watch List for Human Trafficking three years running

The Maldives has appeared on the US State Department’s Tier Two Watch List for Human Trafficking for the third year in a row.

Having “not demonstrated evidence of increasing efforts to address human trafficking over the previous year”, the country only narrowly avoided a descent to Tier 3 – the worst category – after presenting a written plan that, “if implemented, would constitute making significant efforts to meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking.”

Particular areas of criticism included “a lack of systematic procedures for identifying victims of trafficking among vulnerable populations, and not taking sufficient law enforcement steps or concrete actions to protect trafficking victims and prevent trafficking in Maldives.”

“Counter-trafficking efforts are impeded by a lack of understanding of the issue, a lack of legal structure, and the absence of a legal definition of trafficking.”

The report noted that in 2011, “13 suspected victims of human trafficking and two suspected human traffickers were intercepted and deported in three cases of human trafficking identified at the Ibrahim Nasir International Airport (INIA).”

The Maldivian government’s response to trafficking victims was to deport them, the report noted, without providing access to services “such as shelter, counseling, medical care, or legal aid.”

“It did not provide foreign victims with legal alternatives to their removal to countries where they might face hardship or retribution,” the report noted. “Authorities did not encourage victims to participate in the investigation or prosecution of trafficking offenders. Due to a lack of comprehensive victim identification procedures, the government may not have ensured that migrants subjected to forced labor and prostitution were not inappropriately incarcerated, fined, or otherwise penalised for unlawful acts committed as a direct result of [their] being trafficked.”

The Maldives made some progress towards prevention, the report noted, including the approval of an Anti-Trafficking plan in March 2012 and the establishment of an Anti Human-Trafficking and People Smuggling Unit in January 2012.

However, despite an operation in April 2011 by police and immigration into an “unknown number” of ongoing cases involving fraudulent recruitment, the deportation of two foreigners as a result and the raid and closure of several recruitment agencies by court order on suspicion of fraud and forgery, “no labour recruiter or broker was punished or fined for fraudulent recruitment practices.”

The Maldives is mainly flagged as a destination country for victims of labour exploitation, particularly from Bangladesh and to a lesser extent, India, but was noted as a destination for sex trafficking.

“An unknown number of the 80,000 to 110,000 foreign workers that government officials estimate are currently working in Maldives – primarily in the construction and service sectors – face conditions indicative of forced labor: fraudulent recruitment, confiscation of identity and travel documents, withholding or nonpayment of wages, or debt bondage,” the 2012 report notes.

“According to a diplomatic source, an estimated 50 percent of Bangladeshi workers in Maldives are not documented and a number of these workers are victims of trafficking. Migrant workers pay the equivalent of US$1,000 to US$4,000 in recruitment fees in order to migrate to Maldives,” the State Department said.

“In addition to Bangladeshis and Indians, some migrants from Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and Nepal reportedly experienced recruitment fraud before arriving in Maldives. Recruitment agents in source countries generally collude with employers and agents in Maldives to facilitate fraudulent recruitment and forced labor of migrant workers,” the report added.

The Maldives’ expatriate population makes up almost a third of the country’s population. Minivan News previously reported in 2010 that the scale of labour trafficking in the Maldives was so disproportionately vast that the revenue generated made it the second greatest source of foreign currency to the economy after tourism, eclipsing fishing.

In addition, a smaller number of women were trafficked from Sri Lanka, Thailand, India, China, the Philippines, Eastern Europe, and former Soviet Union countries and Bangladesh for sex work in Male’.

The new government has closed down many illegal brothels in Male’ since coming to power, with nearly a dozen reported raids of so-called ‘beauty salons’. The expatriate women arrested during these raids are typically quickly deported, however there have been few reports of brothel owners being prosecuted.

“Some reports indicate that internal sex trafficking of Maldivian girls,” the report noted. “Maldivian children are transported to Male from other islands for forced domestic service, and a small number were reportedly sexually abused by the families with whom they stayed. This is a corruption of the widely acknowledged practice where families send Maldivian children to live with a host family in Male for educational purposes.”

‘Cash bounties’

The State Department’s report was swiftly followed by news articles in local media this week claiming that private companies and individuals had begun posting ‘cash bounties’ for absconded expatriate workers.

According to a report in Sun Online, notices had been posted in cafes windows and garages offering rewards of between Rf1000 (US$65) and Rf3000 (US$195) for information leading to the whereabouts of foreign nationals in hiding.

“We let people paste announcements when they request for it. We don’t ask who they are or anything,” a garage employee told the publication, when asked about one such notice.

Immigration officials and police quickly condemned the practice.

Police Sub-Inspector Hassan Haneef told Minivan News that while police had received no official reports of the posters, a journalist had raised the matter in a press conference. Posting such notices was illegal, he said, and opened those responsible to charges of harassment.

An official from the Immigration Department also expressed surprise at the reports.

“We did not know that was going on. It is absolutely against international human rights,” he said, adding that it the matter would be examined.

Standard practice among employers in the Maldives has been required to post the photographs and details of missing and absconded expatriate workers in the local newspaper – on most days, the pages include rows of such faces. However the Immigration official emphasised that no money was offered as an incentive for locating the missing workers.

“I think somebody is playing politics,” he said, of the report of cash bounties. “The US State Department released its report three days ago. We’re still on the watch list. My thinking is that somebody [put up the posters] to tarnish our reputation.”

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Police sign memorandum with US government for counter-terrorism cooperation

The Maldives Police Service signed a Memorandum of Intent (MoI) with the US government on Tuesday to “enhance the abilities of the law enforcement agencies of the government of Maldives to deter terrorists and terrorist groups from engaging in international terrorist acts.”

The MoI was signed by Commissioner of Police Ahmed Faseeh on behalf of the government while the Ambassador of the United States of America, Patricia Butenis, signed for the American government.

According to a police press statement, the US State Department would be providing assistance to the Maldivian police under its anti-terrorism assistance programme.

The purpose of the MoI is to establish a mechanism for local law enforcement to cooperate with the US government in counter-terrorism activities, the statement said.

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“Freedom of religion remains severely restricted”: US State Department

Legal restrictions on freedom of religion in the Maldivian constitution and laws are generally enforced in practice by the government, observed a US State Department ‘July-December 2010 International Freedom of Religion Report’ made public yesterday.

The new constitution enacted in 2008 designates Islam as the official state religion and states that “a non-Muslim may not become a citizen of the Maldives.”

“There was no change in the status of respect for religious freedom by the government during the reporting period. Freedom of religion remained severely restricted,” the report found. “The government required that all citizens be Muslims, and government regulations were based on Sharia (Islamic law).”

However it added that “[t]here were no reports of societal abuses or discrimination based on religious affiliation, belief, or practice.”

On constitutional restrictions to freedom of religion and conscience, the report noted that religion was “excluded from a list of attributes for which people should not be discriminated against.”

Meanwhile under the Protection of Religious Unity Act of 1994, any statement or action contrary to the law could be punished either by a fine or imprisonment.

Following the 2008 presidential election, the report noted, President Mohamed Nasheed replaced the former Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs with the current Ministry of Islamic Affairs and appointed the head of the religious conservative Adhaalath party as its minister.

“Minivan News reported that every Friday prayer since President Nasheed’s inauguration had been led by a religious figure from the Adhaalath Party,” the report noted. “It stated that in this way, Islam was being controlled by one group at the expense of other prominent scholars. The same report observed that a new ministry newspaper published every Friday, called Road to Steadfastness, printed only articles written by Adaalath Party members. According to government officials, the purpose was to maintain a moderate Islamic environment rather than an extremist one.”

The report also referred to the ministry’s ban on religion groups holding independent or separate Friday prayer congregations earlier than the fixed time of 12:35pm: “The ministry justified the ban, stating that separate prayer groups violated the Protection of Religious Unity Act that was intended to promote religious homogeneity.”

Although apostasy or conversion by a Maldivian Muslim to another religion was interpreted as a Shariah law violation, “there were no known cases of the government discovering converts and rescinding citizenship as a result of conversion.”

“During previous reporting periods, would-be converts were detained and counseled to dissuade them from converting; however, according to press reports, a handful of persons in the country’s blogging community reportedly identified themselves as atheist or Christian,” the report stated.

Referring to reporting by Forum 18, a Norwegian human rights organisation that promotes freedom of religion, the State Department report noted that “many persons, especially secular individuals and non-Muslims, voiced their concern over the restrictions on religion in anonymous weblogs. The organization stated fear of social ostracism and government punishment prevented this concern from being openly expressed.”

On social pressure restricting religious freedom, the report found that “there has not been a pattern of discrimination, intolerance or harassment.”

The report however referred to the suicide of Ismail Mohamed Didi, an air traffic controller who was found hanged from the control tower of Male International Airport on July 11, 2010.

“An e-mail written by Ismail, released shortly after his death, revealed that he had been seeking asylum abroad for fear of persecution over his lack of religious belief,” it stated. “Ismail had admitted he was an atheist to his work colleagues and at the time of his death, he was the subject of an internal investigation for professed apostasy. He subsequently had been harassed at work and received anonymous phone calls threatening violence if he did not repent.”

Religious Unity

Meanwhile a report by United Nations Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, Heiner Bielefeldt, published in February 2011, expressed concern to the government that a number of provisions in the regulations on protection of religious unity drafted in May 2010 “may seriously hamper several human rights, including freedom of religion or belief and freedom of opinion and expression.”

The Special Rapporteurs inquired after “steps have been taken by the Government to address the situation of members of religious minorities, dissenting believers and journalists, especially in order to guarantee their rights to freedom of religion or belief and to freedom of opinion and expression.”

However the Special Rapporteur had not received a response from the government as of February this year.

“The Special Rapporteur regrets that he has so far not received a reply from the Maldives Government concerning the above mentioned allegations,” the report stated. “He would like to appeal to the Government to ensure the right to freedom of religion or belief in accordance with article 18 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.”

Article 18 of the UDHR guarantees “freedom, either individually or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching”.

The Special Rapporteur warned that “vague terms such as ‘religious unity’ or ‘disagreement’ (article 2 of the draft Regulations) makes the interpretation of the draft Regulations prone to abuse which may be detrimental for members of religious minorities and dissenting believers.”

Moreover, a number of provisions would conflict with the Maldives’ obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

In the 2006 country report, the previous Special Rapporteur had noted that “the concept of national unity appears to have become inextricably linked to the concept of religious unity, and even religious homogeny, in the minds of the population.”

In addition, the 2006 report observed that “religion has been used as a tool to discredit political opponents and that political opponents have publicly accused each other of being either Christians or Islamic extremists, both of which have proved to be damaging accusations in a country in which religious unity is so highly regarded.”

The Special Rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression meanwhile found in 2009 “that people are prevented both by legislative provisions and through social pressure from expressing their views about issues relevant to religion or belief and as a result exercise self-censorship.”

“Against this background, the Special Rapporteur would urge the Maldives
Government to reconsider the draft Regulations, specifically taking into account the international human rights standards on freedom of religion or belief and freedom of opinion and expression,” the report concluded.

“To this end, he calls upon the Maldives Government to allow for further debate and revision of the draft Regulations due to concerns that their implementation could have a significant negative impact on human rights in the country.”

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Maldives remains on US State Department’s human trafficking watch list for second year

The Maldives remains on the US State Department’s Tier 2 Watch List for human trafficking, a list signifying an increasing number of victims and little evidence of increased efforts to tackle the problem.

The report comes days after the Maldives National Defence Force (MNDF) was called to temporarily take over the front line work of the Immigration Department and Human Resources Ministry pending an investigation into corruption and falsification of work permits.

Migrant workers from Bangladesh and to a lesser extent, India, are being subjected to forced labour in the Maldives, primarily in the construction and service sectors, while women and girls are also being subjected to sex trafficking, the report said.

An unknown number of the up to 110,000 foreign workers in the country – a third of the population – “face conditions indicative of forced labor: fraudulent recruitment practices, confiscation of identity and travel documents, withholding or nonpayment of wages, or debt bondage,” the report noted, adding that 30,000 workers had no legal status in the country.

Bangladeshi nationals were especially vulnerable to labour trafficking, the report stated, citing “diplomatic sources” as claiming that half the Bangladeshi workers in the country had arrived illegally, having paid between US$1000 and US$4000 in ‘recruitment fees’.

“In addition to Bangladeshis and Indians, some migrants from Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and Nepal reportedly experienced recruitment fraud before arriving in the Maldives,” the report noted.

“Trafficking offenders in the Maldives usually fall into three groups: families that subject domestic servants to forced labor; employment agents who bring low-skilled migrant workers to the Maldives under false terms of employment and upon payment of high fees for purposes of forced labor; and employers who subject the migrants to conditions of forced labor upon arrival,” the report revealed.

The State Department reiterated claims from the Human Rights Commission of the Maldives (HRCM) that female migrant workers were also being trapped by employers who were using threats and intimidation to prevent them from leaving.

More commonly, “Recruitment agents collude with employers and agents in the Maldives to facilitate fraudulent recruitment and forced labor of migrant workers.”

Domestic trafficking was also observed, whereby “some underage Maldivian children are transported to Male’ from other islands for forced domestic service, and a small number sexually abused by the families with whom they stayed. This is a corruption of the widely acknowledged practice where families send Maldivian children to live with a host family in Male for educational purposes.”

The US State Department’s report was critical of the Maldives for human trafficking enforcement in the country over the reporting period, and noted that it had not investigated or prosecuted any trafficking-related offences despite the scale of the problem.

“The government did not investigate or prosecute any labor trafficking cases, but is reportedly investigating two child prostitution cases,” it noted.

It was especially critical of the government’s treatment of those found to be victims of trafficking: “The Maldivian government did not ensure that victims of trafficking received access to necessary assistance during the reporting period. The government did not develop or implement formal procedures for proactively identifying victims, and did not identify any specific cases of trafficking. The Maldives did not provide access to services such as shelter, counseling, medical care, or legal aid to foreign or Maldivian victims of trafficking. The government did not conduct any anti-trafficking or educational campaigns, nor did it take any measures to reduce demand for forced labor within the country.”

The report noted that the Maldives’ general policy for dealing with trafficking victims “was to deport them.”

“Authorities did not encourage victims to participate in the investigation or prosecution of trafficking offenders. Due to a lack of comprehensive victim identification procedures, the Maldives may not have ensured that expatriates subjected to forced labor and prostitution were not inappropriately incarcerated, fined, or otherwise penalised for unlawful acts committed as a direct result of being trafficked.”

The report also observed that while the Maldivian Constitution outlawed forced labour and slavery, a person legally married to a minor was exempt from the heavy penalties of the Child Sexual Abuse Act passed in 2009, and that “none of the offences specified in the legislation, including child prostitution, would be considered a crime.”

Positives

The report did highlight the ratification by cabinet by a Human Trafficking Plan in February 2011, but observed that this had no law enforcement component, and failed to distinguish people smuggling from trafficking.

Furthermore, a blacklist of 16 employment agencies and private companies by the Labour Relations Authority (LRA) showed no sign of being enforce.

A “rapid assessment” on human trafficking commissioned by HRCM in 2010 had not been finalised, the State Department report observed.

The report urged the government to develop procedures whereby government officials could identify victims of trafficking, and provide them with access to services for victims – particularly translators. It also urged greater efforts to investigate and prosecute trafficking offences.

The final recommendation was “take steps to ensure that employers and labor brokers are not abusing labor recruitment or sponsorship processes in order to subject migrant workers to forced labor” – one that appears to have been preempted by this week’s corruption probe of Immigration Department and Human Resources Ministry.

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Osama bin Laden killed in Pakistan by US forces, says Obama

US President Barack Obama has declared the death of Osama bin Laden at the hands of US forces.

In a live broadcast to the US on Sunday night, Obama claimed that an intelligence lead in August 2010 had culminated in the tracking of bin Laden to Abbottabad, a town north of Islamabad in Pakistan far from the tribal belt where the US has been searching for the fugitive.

“It was far from certain, and it took many months to run this thread to ground. I met repeatedly with my national security team as we developed more information about the possibility that we had located bin Laden hiding within a compound deep inside of Pakistan. And finally, last week, I determined that we had enough intelligence to take action, and authorised an operation to get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice,” Obama said.

“A small team of Americans” engaged bin Laden in a firefight, killing him. No US or civilian casualties were reported, and bin Laden’s body was recovered.

A US official told Associated Press that “We are assuring [his body] is handled in accordance with Islamic practice and tradition.”

Counter-terrorism cooperation with Pakistan “help lead us to bin Laden and the compound where he was hiding,” Obama said.

“We must also reaffirm that the United States is not – and never will be – at war with Islam,” he added. “Bin Laden was not a Muslim leader; he was a mass murderer of Muslims.  Indeed, al Qaeda has slaughtered scores of Muslims in many countries, including our own.  His demise should be welcomed by all who believe in peace and human dignity.”

Reaction

Crowds immediately gathered outside the gates of the White House singing the country’s national anthem, while news networks reported a “party atmosphere” spreading throughout the country.

British Prime Minister David Cameron said that confirmation of bin Laden’s death should  “bring great relief to people across the world”.

“Osama Bin Laden was responsible for the worst terrorist atrocities the world has seen – for 9/11 and for so many attacks, which have cost thousands of lives, many of them British,” the PM said.

A Western diplomat based in Islamabad told the UK’s Guardian newspaper that bin Laden’s death was a “game changer” for US foreign policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“I’m overjoyed, but what this exactly means is really not clear,” the diplomat said.

A number of analysts speculated that while bin Laden’s death was a significant symbolic victory for the US, it was unlikely to hamper al Qaeda’s operations as bin Laden was no longer involved in the day-to-day functioning of the terrorist organisation.

The US State Department meanwhile issued a travel alert to all US citizens warning of an outbreak of anti-American violence in the wake of bin Laden’s death.

“Given the uncertainty and volatility of the current situation, US citizens in areas where recent events could cause anti-American violence are strongly urged to limit their travel outside of their homes and hotels and avoid mass gatherings and demonstrations,” the State Department said.

US Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, Robert Blake, is currently in Male’ for meetings with political leaders and civil society.

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Communication among Muslims a key challenge: Farah Pandith

Extremism is the ‘front and centre’ of concerns shared by Muslims all over the world, at least according to Farah Pandith, the US State Department’s Special Representative to Muslim Communities, who is paying a four day visit to the Maldives.

Pandith, who reports directly to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, is using the visit to meet with government and political figures, as well as NGOs and local people, to look at the possible social challenges facing the Maldives as an emerging Islamic democracy, as well as how best to respond to such difficulties.

Speaking on Sunday at the American Centre in the National Library in Male’ to an audience of local people and foreigners from across the private and public sector, Pandith said that even in the current Facebook age, communication among Muslims was seen as a major challenge facing Islamic communities.

According to Pandith, a large proportion of the world’s Muslims are believed to be under 30 years of age, yet the US Representative claimed that amidst a divide between followers of the faith and non-Islamic people, many young Muslims were not part of the “conversation” relating to differing faiths and viewpoints.

The representative said that this lack of communication about Islam in some cultures has further added to a global culture of ‘us and them’ between Muslims and other faith and belief groups.

In such a climate, the US State Department claims to now be looking to work with NGOs and local enterprise to better directly address discontent in Islamic societies all over the world.

In considering this more hands on approach by the US government, Pandith acknowledged that some US foreign policy during the last deacde, particularly in the Arab world, had been “unpopular” – not just amongst Muslims but large swathes of the world’s population. However, she claimed the country was moving beyond a so-called “freedom agenda” of pushing democracy, by trying instead to promote initiatives and activities designed to directly address prominent social concerns.

In addressing local audience members at the talk, Pandith asked the 20 or so people in attendance what it meant to them to be Maldivian and Islamic.

The response, according to some in the audience, was confusion and possible consideration of leaving the country amidst concerns over what they perceive as issues of free speech in relation to the role of faith.

Having met Pandith during her visit, State Minister for Islamic Affairs Mohamed Shaheem Ali Saeed, told Minivan News that principles such as free speech and human rights were an important part of the Maldives constitution and the influence of Islam in the country.

“The Maldives is very unique as we are both 100 percent Muslim and democratic,” he said.

Pointing specifically to Article 27 of the constitution, Shaheem stressed that there was freedom of speech within the Maldives, though this right to speak was bound by the principles of the Islamic faith.

Ultimately, the State Minister for Islamic Affairs claimed that Islam has formed the backbone of Maldives society for hundreds of years and was central to national ideas of human rights and free speech.

“In war for example, Islam forbids the killing of woman and children,” said Shaheem as an example of the religion’s impact on the notion of human rights.

In relation to the potential challenges of establishing more debate over Islam in the country, Shaheem said he believed the major concerns the ministry faced in the country were more related to drugs and the emergence of extremist ideas, both religious and non-religious in nature.

Although stressing his belief that the country has no Al Qaeda-style organisations, the State Minister said it was important to counter and not give any opportunity for more radical, extreme forms of Islam to take root in the country.

To try and meet this aim, Shaheem claimed that education and academic pursuits formed a major part of efforts to retain the country’s status as a moderate nation.

The Islamic Ministry says that greater links it has with many western nations like the UK reflects a more collaborative relationship with Muslim communities across the world.

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Report condemns Maldives for inaction on human trafficking

The Maldives has been placed on the US State Department watch-list for human trafficking, following the country’s failure to “investigate or prosecute trafficking-related offenses or take concrete actions to protect trafficking victims and prevent trafficking in the Maldives.”

The State Department’s 2010 Human Trafficking report, which comes less than a month after the Maldives was given a seat on the UN Human Rights Council, is scathing of government inaction, particularly regarding forced labour and exploitation of Bangladeshi nationals.

“An unknown number of the 110,000 foreign workers currently working in the Maldives – primarily in the construction and service sectors – face fraudulent recruitment practices, confiscation of identity and travel documents, withholding or non-payment of wages, or debt bondage,” the report noted.

“Diplomatic sources estimate that half of the 35,000 Bangladeshis in the Maldives went there illegally and that most of these workers are probably victims of trafficking.”

The report noted that even legal workers were vulnerable to conditions of forced labor, and that the Maldives did not provide services such as shelter, counseling, medical care, or legal aid to foreign or Maldivian victims of trafficking.

The government’s “general policy” for dealing with trafficking victims was deportation, the report said, “and it did not provide foreign victims with legal alternatives to their removal to countries where they might face hardship or retribution. On an ad-hoc basis, it provided extremely short-term housing for migrants immediately before deportation.”

The Maldives did not comply with minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking in persons, however the US State Department conceded that the government “is making significant efforts to do so.”

“Despite these efforts, the government lacks systematic procedures for identifying victims of trafficking among vulnerable populations, and during the reporting period it did not investigate or prosecute trafficking-related offenses or take concrete actions to protect trafficking victims and prevent trafficking in the Maldives,” it said, placing the Maldives on a ‘tier 2 watch list’ alongside Afghanistan, Brunei, Laos, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Trafficking offenders

Little progress had been made to identify and prosecute trafficking offenders, the report noted, classing three types: “families that subject domestic servants to forced labor; employment agents who bring low-skilled migrant workers to the Maldives under false terms of employment and upon payment of high fees; and employers who subject the migrants to conditions of forced labor upon arrival.”

The report acknowledged “a small number” of women from Sri Lanka, Thailand, India, China, the Philippines, Eastern Europe, and former Soviet Union countries that had been recruited “for forced prostitution in Male”, while underage Maldivian girls were reportedly also trafficked to Male from other islands for involuntary domestic servitude, “a corruption of the widely acknowledged practice where families send Maldivian girls to live with a host family in Male for educational purposes.”

However in numercial terms, the bulk of country’s human trafficking revolved around illegal recruitment of migrant workers, mostly from Bangladesh, who paid on average between US$1,000 to US$4,000 in recruitment fees in order to migrate to the Maldives, potentially indebting them to an employer or agent and making them vulnerable to forced labor.

Limited enforcement

The government had made “limited” efforts to enforce anti-human trafficking laws during the last year, the report said, noting that while the country did not have explicit laws prohibiting human trafficking, the Constitution forbade forced labour and slavery.

“However, the government did not investigate or prosecute any trafficking cases and the only prescribed penalty for labor trafficking offenses is a fine,” it observed.

It noted that the Labor Tribunal, created as part of the 2008 Employment Act, heard eight cases involving foreign workers whose wages had not been paid, but lacked the legal authority to enforce its decision.

“In addition, employment tribunal members and employees expressed concerns about their ability to resolve cases involving foreign workers because all their proceedings were conducted in [Dhivehi],” it added.

Moreover, the report said that the Maldives may have “inappropriately incarcerated, fined, or otherwise penalised” unlawfully trafficked persons because of a lack of comprehensive victim identification procedures.

“The government did not conduct any anti-trafficking or educational campaigns and it did not take steps to create an inter-agency structure – such as a committee or plan of action – for coordination on anti-trafficking matters,” it said, adding that government additionally made no effort to reduce demand for forced labor on the islands.

It noted that in 2010 the Maldives had enacted a provision requiring all employers to use employment agents, and recommended it take steps to ensure that employers and labor brokers “were not abusing labour recruitment or sponsorship processes in order to subject migrant workers to forced labour.”

Response

President of the Human Rights Commission of the Maldives (HRCM), Ahmed Saleem, said the US State Department’s report did not reflect well on the country.

“This is something the government had not believed was happening in the Maldives [until recently],” he said.

“This doesn’t reflect well on us, and it’s an issue that has to be addressed. I’m glad the issue of trafficking has been recognised.”

Saleem acknowledged a deeper “cultural issue” concerning the exploitation of Bangladeshi expatriates, one he noted “is getting worse on a daily basis.”

“Usually Maldivians are very tolerant of expats coming and working here,” he observed.

He added that the commission was currently compiling a report on human trafficking in the Maldives, and noted that while the State Department’s report was highly critical of the Maldives, the US itself had committed “gross human rights violations”, and “should hold itself to the same standards to which it holds other countries.”

“They should also expect criticism,” he said.

Introducing the report, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton noted that 2010 was the first time the United States had included itself in the rankings,

“The United States takes its first-ever ranking not as a reprieve but as a responsibility to strengthen global efforts against modern slavery, including those within America. This human rights abuse is universal, and no one should claim immunity from its reach or from the responsibility to confront it,” she said.

“Huge scams”

Bangladeshi High Commissioner Professor Selina Mohsin said “unscrupulous brokers” were bringing Bangladeshi nationals into the country by photocopying legitimate work visas – bearing her signature -“hundreds of times”, which authorities were continuing to accept at the border.

“I’ve tried to meet the Human Resources Minister [Hassan Latheef] and ask him to stop accepting photocopies of work permits,” she said.

“I haven’t signed a single work permit since the beginning of April – how is it workers are still coming into the Maldives? Just today I found a copy of my signature on a photocopied work permit. Unless the original is brought over by the employee, we can’t stop this,” she said, suggesting there was “some problem” occurring at either the labour ministry or immigration.

“All they have to do is stop letting [illegal expatriates] into the country. It is ridiculous that this is happening – why can’t the government only accept original work permits?”

Prof Mohsin said the situation was a result of brokers and employers, both in the Maldives and overseas, running “huge scams” reaching up to several hundred million US dollars.

“I just tried to have a Bangladeshi agent deported – I caught him almost red-handed – but his Maldivian friends have taken him to court so he can stay in the country,” she said, noting that the case was still ongoing.

Few of the local authorities had Bangla speakers, she noted, making communication an issue as well. For example, the employment tribunal was conducting cases in Dhivehi and the expatriates involved could not understand what was going on, she said.

“It should be the government providing interpreters, rather than us,” she claimed. “In places like the UK there are policemen who speak other languages.”

When workers arrived and became unemployed, “they can’t be deported because that costs money, and if there’s no employment, people turn to crime,” she noted.

Prof Mohsin was also critical of HRCM, commenting that she “hardly saw [Saleem] anywhere. If he is invisible, what use is it in having a Human Rights Commission?”

Minister for Human Resources Hassan Latheef had not responded to Minivan News at time of press.

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US thanks Maldives while DRP continues opposition to Gitmo decision

The US State Department has thanked the Maldivian government for agreeing to accept detainees from Guantánamo Bay, but opposition parties are still saying they were not informed of the government’s decision.

Spokesman for the US State Department, Philip Crowley, said yesterday: “The United States welcomes the Government of Maldives reaffirmation that it intends to accept detainees from Guantánamo Bay. The United States is grateful to all countries that have accepted detainees [and] for their willingness to support US efforts to close the Guantánamo Bay detention facility.”

Jeffery Anderson at the US Embassy to the Maldives in Colombo said they embassy could provide no further information on the detainees being transferred to the Maldives.

President Mohamed Nasheed said yesterday: “It was very clear back then that people were arrested [and put] in Guantánamo without proper checks. People were just taken from all over and incarcerated. Today, when the jail is being dismantled, and the Maldives is among the few 100 percent Muslim countries in the world, if we can’t care about them, where is the example we are showing to the international community and other people of the book [Jews and Christians]?”

Press Secretary for the President’s Office, Mohamed Zuhair, said he believed the detainee being transferred was a Palestinian man from the West Bank.

“According to the US Department of State, he is not capable of planning or executing a crime,” Zuhair noted.

He said the man belongs to the Tabligh sect of Islam, and added, “that is not criminal behaviour.”

Zuhair said the man was chosen because he was “the least controversial” prisoner and had not been charged with a crime. “This man will have complete records with him,” he said, adding all consultations about his past were held by the US government.

“He did not have a fair trail,” Zuhair noted. “Actually, he did not have a trial.”

He said the Maldives had chosen to take a former prisoner of the detention centre because the Maldives is “one of many interested in closing Guantánamo Bay and the repatriation of the remaining prisoners.”

Zuhair said bringing a Guantánamo detainee to the Maldives would give the country “prestige” and “honour.”

“The [Maldivian] population is devoutly Muslim and this will translate to more prestige and honour and better sentiment towards the Maldives,” he said. “It will have a positive effect all the way.”

Humanitarian action

State Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ahmed Naseem, said it was still premature to talk about how many detainees will be sent from the controversial prison, who they are or when they will be brought to the Maldives.

“It has not come to that stage yet,” he said, “but we have certain ideas of who [will be brought].”

He added that the prisoners still have to be interviewed and many legalities are still being examined.

“We also need to know why these people were arrested,” Naseem noted, emphasising that “we are not bringing any terrorists to the Maldives.”

“Not everyone who was arrested is a terrorist or a criminal,” he said, referring to the Maldivian national Ibrahim Fauzee, who was taken to Guantánamo in 2002 and brought back to the Maldives in 2005.

“His apartment happened to be formerly occupied by Palestinian terrorists and he was taken by police,” Naseem said, noting that Fauzee was later released with no charges.

Fauzee, who is president of the Maldivian religious NGO the Islamic Foundation, said he did not wish to comment on the issue.

Naseem noted that “everybody knows” there were many wrongful detentions made by the USA after the 9/11 attacks, “similar to arrests during Gayoom’s regime.”

He said the nationality of the detainees did not matter, since this is “a humanitarian issue.”

“A lot of Muslims have been affected by this,” he said, adding that as long as the resettlement was within the Constitution and laws of the country, there should be no problem in resettling former Guantánamo Bay prisoners.

Naseem said the US State Department had carefully chosen several countries around the world and had asked them to take in prisoners who were cleared of charges in their bid to close down the detention centre.

“They [USA] has confidence in the Maldives, in our human rights record, and know the [detainees] will have their rights [here].”

He noted the US “will have an obligation” to take into consideration the living expenses for any detainees sent to the Maldives.

“But those details still have to be worked out,” he added.

Naseem said this is “purely based on human rights” and the only reason it was becoming such a big issue locally was because the opposition Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) had obtained official papers “and are having a field day with this.”

He added that the decision to resettle the detainees been public knowledge since December last year when President Nasheed announced his intention to bring in detainees during his radio address.

Opposition

The Dhivehi Qaumy Party (DQP) has been especially vocal in its opposition to the resettlement of Guantánamo prisoners.

They wrote in their website: “There is no reason that a small country like the Maldives with limited resources should accept such convicts when a country like America won’t accept them.”

DQP believes the president does not have the Constitutional authority to “transfer convicts” into the country, adding that such an actions would “make expatriates working in the country as well as visiting tourists more unsettled.”

They are planning on filing a case at court and a bill at the next session of Parliament prohibiting the transfer of foreign prisoners to the Maldives.

The party added the government was “not making any effort” to repatriate Maldivians in foreign jails.

DRP MP Ahmed Nihan said he thought the move would be dangerous to the country, claiming, “I do not believe this will make any betterment to the country. It is putting our country in danger.”

He said DRP MP Ali Waheed had sent a letter to the Majlis’ National Security Committee on the issue, but the sitting has been postponed. He said it would hopefully take place in the “coming weeks.”

“We are asking to get more details. No one knows what the government is trying to do,” Nihan said. “We’re totally in a dark place.”

He said his party had an issue with the lack of transparency, noting that they knew nothing about it until “some papers between the President’s Office and some ministries were leaked.”

“The government has already made a binding agreement. Members of the Majlis hope to know about serious matters like this.”

He said resettling Guantánamo convicts in the country is “a serious issue” and could have “serious consequences. If anything happens in the wrong direction, we’re in a serious situation,” he said, referring to the geographic location of the Maldives and the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

“If the government is genuine about this,” he said, “we would already have had negotiations between the government and the Majlis.”

Nihan added that President Nasheed’s remarks to the media yesterday, particularly his dismissal of the opposition’s outcry, was “total rudeness. It was like a comment from George Bush.”

He said he could not speak for his entire party, but said that regardless of whether the government was careful about who they were bringing into the country, “I cannot agree on this.”

History of Guantánamo

Land in Cuba’s Guantánamo Bay in the Oriente Province, the south-east of the island, was rented out by the United States in 1903 to set up a naval base. It was originally used for monitoring illegal migrants trying to enter the United States through Florida and other ports in the Caribbean.

Starting in 2002, prisoners accused of terrorism were sent to a detention centre in the base, after George W. Bush’s administration began capturing “enemy combatants” from around the world following the September 11 2001 attacks.

From its inception the detention centre has been surrounded by accusations of torture and of withholding the rights of prisoners under the Geneva Convention, which would guarantee them a fair trial.

Since 2002, many detainees have been released without charge after years of imprisonment, like Britain’s “Tipton Three,” who were repatriated to England in 2004 after two years of wrongful imprisonment.

In 2009 the White House reported that since 2002, approximately 800 individuals were imprisoned as ‘enemy combatants’ and detained at Guantánamo. Around 500 of those prisoners were either transferred or released, whether to their home countries or to a third country.

Additionally, they note “the Department of Defense has determined that a number of the individuals currently detained at Guantánamo are eligible for such transfer or release.”

In January 2009, US President Barack Obama ordered the closing of the Guantánamo detention centre within a year, and assigned a special task force to “consider policy options for apprehension, detention, trial, transfer or release of detainees.” He also banned the use of “harsh interrogations”.

The order states that all prisoners not eligible for transfer must be prosecuted, or the state must “select lawful means…for the disposition of such individuals.”

On the transfer of prisoners, the president’s order reads: “[The Special Task Force] will also look at rendition and other policies for transferring individuals to third countries to be sure that our policies and practices comply with all obligations and are sufficient to ensure that individuals do not face torture and cruel treatment if transferred.”

Crowley added yesterday that “since 2009, the United States has transferred 59 detainees to 24 different destinations; 35 of these have been transfers to third countries.”

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