Maldivians clamour for more freedom

The Maldivian archipelago in the southern strip of Indian Ocean, with more than 1200 islands and a population of 380,000, has no party system although there is no official ban on political activities. The all-powerful president of the country, a single candidate put forward by the parliament known as Majlis, was chosen by voters in a yes or no referendum.

When Maumoon Abdul Gayoom was elected president in 1978, ending 20 years of Ibrahim Nasir's oppressive rule, there were celebrations everywhere hoping the Sri Lankan and Cairo educated young new president would usher in an era of prosperity and democracy.

In terms of prosperity the country did achieve a great deal as tourist industry developed and fuelled rapid economic and social growth.

Vibrant economy

Today the country boasts a per capita income of $2000, infant mortality is one of the lowest in the region, average life span increased to well over 70, and a vibrant economy where the private sector thrives under open market policy. But when it comes to democracy it is unexpected disappointment.

Their hopes were dashed within years and today Gayoom is accused of running the country as a dictator with an iron fist, systematically suppressing all kinds of dissent as even a word of dissent is regarded as treason to be dealt with.

"It is simply a one man show" said a politically conscious young Maldivian in Colombo, who insisted on anonymity for obvious reasons, pointing out that many are fed up with his dictatorship and in 1988 there was even an attempt by Sri Lankan mercenaries to topple his government.

Maldivians in Colombo who even wrote articles about Gayoom's oppressive policies in the local media here said "people are arrested arbitrarily without any consideration for their social standing, age or sex and put under house arrest for indefinite periods or banished to uninhabited far-flung islands.

Even people who receive foreign letters and magazines are carefully scrutinised and summoned to police stations and severely warned, though appreciated and encouraged if the contents promote free mixing of sexes, cinema, rock music, tourism etc. A person was warned recently for receiving an invitation for an international conference.

Citing an example they point out how three Maldivians - Luthfy, Ahmed Zaki and Ahmed Ibrahim Didi - were sentenced to life imprisonment for producing an internet news bulletin called Sandhaanu, which freely expressed independent views, exposed government scandals, top level corruptions and frauds.

They were sentenced last year and put with drug addicts and common criminals in the Maafushi prison, located on a tiny coral island about a mile from Male; Fathimath Nisreen, accused of sending an e-mail encouraging the publication, was given 10 year jail sentence. But the Maldivian government claim that the four were convicted for inciting violence and defamation.

In another incident businessman Ibrahim Moosa Luthfy, a former prisoner of conscience, was arrested on January 31, 2002 at his residence in Male, handcuffed and chained to an 'H' shaped iron girder unable to move, sit or bend over properly for 11 days. Chains were only removed three times daily for 10-15 minutes for meals.

According to them prisoners were kept in small concentration cells, provided with only five litres of water per day for bath and other needs and some of them were subjected to torture by prison guards. They slept on two feet wide hard plywood pieces on cemented ground infested with bugs.

The uneasy calm was shaken to the core on September 19 when riots broke out for the first time in Male, with a population of 80,000, as a spontaneous response to the death of Hussain Nasseem, a young inmate in the Maafushi island prison.

According to reports he died in prison of internal haemorrhage with a crack on his skull after the guards wrapped him in a tarpaulin and had beaten him.

The trouble broke out first in the prison and then in Male when the National Security, NSS, tried to bury Naseem secretly without showing the body to his parents, who had rushed to the cemetery where Naseem's mother pushed aside the NSS officers and pulled the lid off the coffin revealing the battered corpse of her son, screaming he was tortured to death.

Naseem's body was photographed and displayed all over Male. Meanwhile the NSS guards clashed with inmates of the Maafushi prison leaving two prisoners dead; two more died later in a hospital in Colombo.

News spread like wildfire and demonstrators in Male set fire to the elections office, the high court, several police stations, vehicles and stoned other public buildings including the main international conference centre.

More than 100 were arrested and the London based Amnesty International, calling upon the Maldivian government to end the systemic political repression, described the disturbances as signs of public frustration over deprivation of human rights.

It added that torture, unfair trials and abuse of power by the security forces, though endemic, are far cry from the image the country presents to the rest of the world.

According to ex-Maldivian prisoners it is common for inmates to be tortured, hung upside down on bars and beaten on their feet or have their head submerged in water, before throwing sugar on prisoners so that they would be bitten by ants in their cells.

Damaged the image

Rejecting the AI criticism President Gayoom appointed a presidential commission to probe into the events while Minister Abdul Rashid Hussein admitted that the riot not only damaged the image but also harmed the economy of the country.

Amidst growing criticism, president Gayoom was re-elected president for a record sixth term by winning all 50 votes in the Majlis, in the first of the two-step election process which was overwhelmingly ratified at a referendum on October 17.

But unlike in 1978 there were no street celebrations this time.

Will the authoritarian rule in the name of democracy turn the Maldives into yet another "tourist paradise lost" as happened in Sri Lanka?