Maldives Update

TODAY:
A man working for Haveeru, the largest newspaper in the country, was stabbed by a group of people shortly as he left work. The incident happened after the paper reported violence at DhiTV, one of the two private TV stations in the country, earlier this afternoon. According to Haveeru, four men attacked senior officials of the station and made their way into its premises, where they issued violent warnings to staff to stop running the story about notorious gangster Nafiz Ibrahim (Chika). DhiTV had broadcast the news that Chika, who in 2008 was convicted of possessing a sword and jailed for 5 years, had been transferred to house-arrest.

YESTERDAY:
An anonymous right-wing religious blogger by the name of Jibue issued death threats against the Maldives first lady Laila Ali, blogger Hilath Rasheed, and special envoy to the president and editor of the online newspaper Dhivehi Observer Ahmed Moosa (Sappe). Jibue warned that blood would be spilled if the authorities failed take action against the alleged mockery of Islam by the latter two.

LAST WEEK:
Four men broke into the house of the manager of Habib Bank Mohamed Anjul Jameel and stabbed and robbed him. It appeared that the men knew Jameel, who had worked for six years in the Maldives, was leaving the country in a matter of days.

EARLIER THIS MONTH:
A criminal court judge aquitted Adam Naseer, alleged by the state to be one of the country's top six drug lords, citing a lack of evidence. Naseer had been been arrested after being monitored by police for months, which was followed by a year-long investigation. Presidential spokesperson Mohamed Zuhair told Minivannews.com that there were "intrinsic problems" with the judiciary, which he claimed was the only part of the state that did not go through reform.

THIS YEAR:
After suffering years of abuse, 30-year-old Mariyam Shereen was was murdered and buried under a pile of sandbags in a construction site in Male, allegedly by her own partner.

A group of men gang-raped a woman in Foah Mulah, while restraining her husband. The alleged-rapists are also said to have thrown gravel into the woman's vagina which caused severe septicemia.

A group of men reportedly broke into a house, tied electrical wires to the feet of a 35-year-old women, and electrocuted her, burning the toes of her left foot.

MALDIVES TODAY
The Maldives in 2010 isn't a very pleasant place to live, especially for women, writers, and those working in the media. Street gangs are thriving, corruption is rife, and the religious right has bullied their way into every aspect of life.

Nobody I know has any confidence that the government, the police or the judiciary is working in their best interest.

I never thought that the Maldives could be worse off than it was during Maumoon Abdul Gayoom's dictatorship.

But it is beginning to look like I was wrong.

A SIGN OF THINGS TO COME?
A woman recently got into a taxi and had to listen to the driver tell someone on the phone that those who didn't wear the buruga should have acid thrown in their face. The woman was one of the few that didn't wear one.

Death threat against a writer in Nasheed's Maldives

President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives likes to present himself as a champion of the freedom of expression and the freedom to dissent. A former dissenter and journalist himself, Nasheed has made well-publicised calls for the release of detained Burmese opposition leader Aung San Su Kyi and offered her refuge in the Maldives. But does Nasheed's compassion extend to dissenters in his own country? We may soon find out.

Earlier today, an anonymous writer calling himself/herself Jihad published an article on the online Dhivehi language Muraasil, calling for the death of blogger Hilath Rasheed, known for his pieces against the religious right. The article appeared shortly after Rasheed published an anonymous letter on his blog critical of 'Sheikh' Fareed's forthcoming lecture "Who is Hell calling for?". 

Jihad's article, now removed from Muraasil, repeatedly called for "infidel" Hilath's murder:

"Let's kill off this fellow. Let's behead him." 

Jihad also remonstrates the government for not shutting down Rasheed's "irreligious" blog or taken action against him.

The website's founder Nasrulla Adam told Minivan News that only 'regular and approved' contributors could post content on the website without moderation, meaning they may be able to help the police trace Jihad's identity.

If President Nasheed really is a champion of the free press he will take this opportunity to condemn the death threat against Hilath Rasheed, and reassure writers and dissenters that his government will do everything it can to protect them.

But Nasheed's silence following attacks on child rights and women's rights by religious conservatives isn't encouraging.

Even if Aung San Su Kyi is released, she shouldn't hop on a plane to the Maldives just yet.

International Women's Day: Murder, rape, and torture of Maldivian women

It’s the International Women’s Day, but Maldivian women have nothing to celebrate. A year into Mohamed Nasheed’s presidency and the murder, rape and horrific torture of women is commonplace, with his government showing impunity, if not sanctioning, the spread of misogyny by the religious right.

On new year’s eve, the body of 30-year-old Mariyam Shereen was discovered under a pile of sandbags in a construction site, allegedly murdered by her own partner. Shereen’s death came after a long history of abuse by her boyfriend, according to her family and friends.

In January, this year, a group of men allegedly gang-raped a woman in Foah Mulaku, while restraining her husband. Maldives Dissent has learnt that the alleged rapists threw gravel into the women’s vagina, which caused severe septicaemia. Not surprisingly, the woman is yet to recover physically or psychologically from her ordeal.

In February, a group of men in Laamu Atoll allegedly broke into a house, tied electrical wires to the feet of a 35-year-old woman, and connected them to the mains. According to the hospital, the electrical shock severely burnt the toes of her left foot.

Violence against women isn’t new to the Maldives, but is now revealing an unmistakably misogynistic trend. This should not come as a surprise, however. Ever since the new government came into power the fastest propaganda being spread in this country is by the religious right, much of it the hatred of women.

Shortly after President’s Nasheed took office, his Islamic ministry granted a preaching permit to Sheikh Fareed, who told a congregation of more than a thousand men in a mosque that more women than men would go to hell since women sin more. But crime figures the world over indicate that the overwhelming majority of crimes are committed by men.

The Adhalath Party, which controls the Islamic ministry, last month held an event entitled “Those Who Desire Paradise’, in which Sheikh Ilyas Hussein gave vent to what appears to be male sexual fantasies in explicit detail. He described at length the many ‘houris’, or pure and beautiful maidens, that await devout men in heaven and told women that if they went to heaven they would be ‘recreated’ to perpetually be 33 years old and have with pointed breasts. Unlike men, who only have to be devout Muslims to go to heaven, women have to have been faithful to their husbands in order to attain paradise.

This may be the most serious abuse of the Quran by the Adhalath to date. In fact, Quranic descriptions of paradise use parables and the verses themselves explicitly state that parables are being used. By failing to tell his audience of this fact, Sheikh Ilyas is clearly misleading them.

But the underlying theme of the speech is the sexualisation of women and the inequality of the sexes. Yet TV Maldives saw it fit to broadcast the speech live, well before the watershed of 10.30 pm.

Sustained spread of misogyny in the Maldives has also been orchestrated by former pop-star turned Wahhabi Ali Rameez’s Jamiyathul Salaf. Ever since Rameez and his associates released a post-tsunami CD blaming the natural disaster on women, Salaf has been churning out misogyny in the name of Islam, by using its unlimited access to the private radio station Radio Atoll, and business tycoon Gasim Ibrahim’s Villa TV. It appears that broadcast standards don't apply to 'religious' content. Salaf works closely with the Islamic ministry and its CDs are now played in mosques across the country.

Last August, Salaf brought in Wahhabi preacher Bilal Philips to tell thousands of Maldivians on live TV that it was alright to marry off girls as soon as they reached puberty, even if they're only nine years old. In a country that has one of the highest child sexual abuse rates in the world, paedophiles couldn’t have hoped for a clearer endorsement of their ideology.

The Maldives state is not only showing impunity towards the spread of misogyny and violence against women children it is, in fact, perpetrating it. According to statistics from the Maldives judiciary, 174 people were convicted of zina or fornication in 2006, and sentenced to public flogging. An overwhelming majority of those sentenced, 146, were women, 19 of who were under 18 years of age. In the same year, seven women, including three minors, were convicted of giving birth out of wedlock. There is no question that institutionalized violence against women and children is condoned and carried out in the Maldives.

When Minivan News broke the story about the shocking flogging statistics, the religious right held a protest against the online newspaper and called for the deportation of its editor Mariyam Omidi. The judiciary has since removed the statistics from its website.

On this International Women’s Day, the government will give the obligatory speech via radio and TV, but is unlikely to delve too deeply into any of the real issues facing Maldivian women today. We can also expect little or no meaningful statement or commitment from the human rights commission or the UN system.

For now, women of the Maldives have nothing to look forward to but a continuation of ideological, physical and sexual assault on them. 

Minivan no more

A group calling itself the Maldives Whale Shark Research Programme  MWSRP, registered as a UK charity, has had its research permit temporarily suspended by the Maldives government. This follows clashes with local divers and complaints by the Divers Association of Maldives DAM to the authorities about the research methods used and the possible impact on marine life. The conflict is fast developing into an all out propaganda war, with one of the country's top news source taking sides.

In this Minivan News article, the writer JJ Robinson dedicates 721 words out of a total of 1401 words to MWSRP’s own version of the events, painting a picture of uncivilized, uneducated Maldivian divers from dive safari liveaboards engaged in guerrilla tactics to sabotage all-important research being done by enlightened Westerners.

As if that were not enough, Robinson gives an additional 173 words to an official of the Diva Island Resort and Spa to describe crew of liveaboards as bottom-baring, reckless louts, out to cause harm to other people’s guests. Robinson does not bother to interview a single liveboard crew or diver against whom his article levies serious allegations. Indeed, only 201 words are given to a representative of the Divers Association of Maldives, currently raising concern with the government about the methods used by the MWSRP, which may be causing of the dwindling number of whale sharks in the protected area.

JJ Robinson’s article is a glaring example of the violation of the code of impartiality, a fundamental ethic of good journalism, and it seriously undermines the pioneering work done by Minivan News to raise reporting standards in the Maldives.

Minivan means independent in Maldivian a, claim Minivan News can no longer make.

 

 

Husnu Sood's flawed special needs bill

President Nasheed did the right thing by heeding the concerns of disability NGOs and sending the controversial special needs bill back to parliament without ratifying it. And, although his attorney general Husnu Sood is said to support the move, Anni must now question him on why his office produced such legislature in the first place.

The bill addresses people with disability as "people with special needs", ignores the obligations of the state under the UN convention on the rights of persons with disabilities signed by the Maldives in 2008, and essentially tries to wash its hand off PWDs with a monthly handout. 

Maldives Dissent has learned that Husnu Sood paid students at the law school do draft the bill, an indication of the importance he gives to legislature of this nature. Sood's failure to background research the subject of disability, read international conventions signed by the Maldives, and consult stake-holders has resulted in wasting valuable time and resources and embarrassing the government.

MPs are no better. By passing the bill they've shown their own ignorance on the subject and their laziness to research the issue before going to parliament. And, as it has now emerged, their failure to listen to the concerns of people involved in disability prior to the voting, seriously raises questions about whether they are acting in the best interests of the people.

Vilufushi MP Riyaz Rasheed, who proposed the handout, displayed astonishing arrogance when he told TVM that the bill would remain unchanged and that the civil society couldn't do anything about it.

But it is heartening that Anni has chosen to listen to the civil society in this instance.

He must now have a chat with Husnu Sood to ensure that nonsense like this doesn't come out of his office again. 

It's ok to keep unclothed slave women, say Adhalath

In their weekly TV Show Thedhu Magu (The Right Path), aired after 6pm on TVM yesterday, Adhalath's Abdul Majeed Bari and Mohamed Shaheem Ali Saeed, respectively minister and state minister of Islamic affairs, may inadvertently have admitted their support for the "jaria", or sex-slaves tradition. 

Speaking of women's clothing, a topic so popular among Adhalath sheikhs that people have wondered if they are closet cross-dressers, Bari said Islam made it compulsory for women to "cover their nudity" upon reaching puberty. Moderator Saeed then interrupted to qualify Bari's reference to women as "free women", meaning those that are not free can remain unclothed. 

This extraordinary exchange to me is highly revealing of the attitudes of these two men. At best it suggests impunity to the custom of keeping sex-slaves. At worst, it's an attempt to indirectly normalise and, indeed, promote the tradition. It seems to me that for Bari and Shaheem not only is it ok for men to enslave women, but they can also keep postpubescent girls naked around the house.

Continuing with the theme of women's clothing, Bari equated "covering nudity" with veiling, but failed to mention that the issue was highly contested by scholars. He then appeared to call for the mainstreaming of girls uniforms worn in the madrassas Mauhadh and Arabiyya.

Bari also said Islam required girls to be brought up to help their mothers in domestic chores, to mould them to the role of the mother in latter life. A women's role, he stressed, was that of a mother.

TVM, which infamously gave free airtime to Salafi preacher Bilal Philips to voice pro-child abuse sentiments, is giving Adhalath a free reign to spread Wahhabism and misogynist propaganda. In addition, the sheikhs have also taken over a host of other TV and radio channels. Adhalath preachers also control the Friday sermon, the largest congregation of Maldivian males. Meanwhile, their partners in crime Jamiyathul Salaf produces countless CDs to be played in taxis and in mosques across the country. 

In November, parliamenterians from across the parties joined forces and vowed to fight violence against women. But no MP is challenging the religious right's continuation of its misogynistic agenda, probably the single-most important factor leading to the hatred, discrimination, and violence of women. With such powerful fueling, it's not surprising that the Maldives has some of the highest rates of violence against women in the world. And, there's no sign of things getting any better.

The vast majority of Maldivians voted President Nasheed in to get rid of dictator Gayoom and to usher in a new era of democracy. But by giving Adhalath a ministry of its own to monopolise Islam and to spread misogynist Wahhabi propaganda at will, Anni is seriously compromising the democratic aspirations of his core support base.

The only thing that has remained consistent in Anni's first year as Maldives president is the sustained assault on democracy, free media, and human rights by Bari and Shaheem, along with their proxies Jamiyathul Salaf (or is it the other way around?)

Note: Please call TVM on 3000428 and ask for a recording of yesterday's Thedhu Magu, analyse it carefully, and confront them if you are concerned. State media is answerable to the public. To raise the issue, also call:

Ministry of Health and Family's Gender Department: 3323687

Ministry of Islamic Affairs: 3323623

War on democracy

The Religious Unity Act has been hijacked by the very people against whom it was created. According to a news story published on minivannews.com last week, recommendations by the Wahhabi NGO Jamiyathul Salaf have been included by the Islamic ministry in the regulations being formulated for the Act.

 

It will come as a surprise for people to learn that former pop star Ali Rameez is now drafting legislature, but Wahhabism’s most famous convert and other colleagues appear to have been collaborating with the Islamic ministry, for some time, on these regulations.

 

In fact, the stated objective of formulating the regulations were to protect Maldivians from brutal practices in the name of Islam and combat religious divisions and antagonism. Jamiyathul Salaf has an unenviable history of openly supporting flogging, the marrying off of under-aged girls, and calling for harsh punishments for people who challenge what it says.

 

Now Salaf is recommending, among other things, for power to be given to a religious body (no doubt comprising of its supporters) to meddle with the national educational curriculum, crackdown on the print media, censor advertisements, and to take action against anyone they consider as defying Islam. If implemented, media and the freedom of expression will be even worse than they were during Gayoom’s dictatorship.

 

The Maldives Salafi movement rose to notoriety in the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami, when Ali Rameez and his buddies produced an audio CD blaming women for the natural disaster, specifically women who refused to wear the veil. The CD had dramatic sound effects, which recreated the sound of the waves, and a voiceover by TVM’s Mohamed Asif Mondhu to lend it authority, and is said to have converted hundreds of women to the buruga.

 

The organization has been trying to spread Wahhabism across the country, allegedly with funds received from Saudi charities. Wahhabism originated in Saudi Arabia two centuries ago and has, since, been the dominant faith there. It insists on a literal interpretation of the Koran and strict Wahhabis denounce anyone who doesn’t practice their form of Islam as enemies. Wahhabism has been criticized as misinterpreting and distorting Islam and leading to extremists like Osama bin Laden and the Taliban.

With ever increasing resources and power, Jamiyathul Salaf produced an anti-music video in which it even got a Human Rights Commission member to denounce music and singing as haraam or anti-Islamic, a highly contested claim in Islamic scholarship. More recently, Salaf has tried to stifle debate about the disproportionate sentencing of women and under-age girls to flogging by Maldivian courts, and labeled critics of this cruel and degrading practice as anti-Islamic.

 

But Salaf’s lowest moment came when they brought in Wahhabi preacher Bilal Phillips to spout misogyny on the Maldivian populace and to state on live television that it was permissible in Islam to marry off under-aged girls. Studies have repeatedly shown that the Maldives has some of the highest (if not the highest) child-abuse rates in South Asia and, possibly, the world. Maldivian paedophiles have long argued that menstruation and not age, physical or psychological development, is the indication of maturity in a women. Philips’s claim can only be read as an endorsement of the sexual abuse of under-aged girls.

 

The Islamic Ministry, composed almost entirely of Adhalath Party members has, up until now, been coy about its relationship with Salaf. But commentators haven’t failed to notice that Salaf has grown in strength ever since President Nasheed gave a ministry to Adhalath. It has been observed that when Anni was declared president, and portfolio bargaining was in full swing, Adhalath members were so excited about the powers they were going obtain that they even forgot to go to the mosque for prayers.

 

It is unclear what Attorney General Husnu Sood will make of the Adhalath-Salaf regulations, but online responses to the Minivan News shows great dismay.

 

It seems that most Maldivians, certainly those that have access to the internet, recongise Adhalath and Salaf for what they are and will not surrender their hard-earned fledgling democratic rights without a fight.

 

But Maldivian politicians usually take longer to respond to threats to democracy when they come from “religious” groups. By the time they do it may be too late.