Category: Guest Contributors

Violence against women has become our culture

Thinakun-Ekeh-28Dec15

by H Abdulghafoor

Thank you Gender Advocacy Working Group (GAWG), for providing an important summary of some of the fundamental issues contributing to the prevalence of violence against women in the Maldives.

It is a social scourge of epic proportions. Not just in the Maldives but elsewhere in the world too.

Why is this happening?

The simplest one word answer is patriarchy.

That age old cultural elephant that has always remained firmly in the room!

Listen to the survivors – get the real picture

The comment to the GAWG article by reader, “Call me Samiya” is a clear account of a survivor’s experience from which every reader must learn and appreciate the complexity of the issue. It is a powerful testament to the strength of this survivor of intimate partner violence, which deserves our greatest respect. In the Maldives, research shows that 1 in 5 women who have ‘ever been in a relationship’ experienced physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner.

As “Call me Samiya” says, it takes great strength to disclose such painful personal experiences so publicly, even to “trusted” duty-bearers such as the relevant authorities. Sadly, survivors’ efforts are too often ignored by such duty-bearers, leading her to question from her own experience – “Who is there to help people like us?” This is an extremely valid question.

Women who try to get out of abusive marriages are made to wait years, for the court system to make a decision on their request for divorce. The authorities appear to think they can “reconcile” an abusive husband and a battered wife through an ad-hoc court facilitated “counselling” session, when divorce proceedings are initiated by a woman. The justice system does not have the capacity, including the necessary human empathy, to support such cases. The implementation of the Domestic Violence Prevention Act (DVPA-2012) is fraught with resistance from duty-bearers, due to alleged conflict of “belief”! Concern has been raised at social sector discussion forums of the refusal of some magistrates to issue Protection Orders to prevent abuse, as mandated by the DVPA-2012. How can justice be served when duty bearers can choose whether or not to apply the law based on individual whim and transient “beliefs”? Notably, the vast majority of magistrates in the Maldives are men.

When a survivor of violence shares their experience, the public has a great responsibility to listen, understand and work to ensure that relevant authorities respond appropriately to address the issue. Violence prevention and seeking redress for survivors require a collective, public effort, especially in a system as dysfunctional as ours.

What social system – what social cost?

Systemic failure is also public failure.

The case of Samiya is yet another indicator of the failures of a society and system of governance that have become so sickeningly inept and incapable to provide social protection services.

There is no room to dispute GAWG’s article.

Samiya was failed by the so-called “system” in the same way young Ibthihaal and many others before them (most we never even get to hear about?), were catastrophically failed, and allowed to suffer and die in horrific circumstances – in small communities where “everyone knows everyone”!!

Let us consider this reality.

In Samiya’s case, she leaves behind three children with a father so sick in his mind one must question his ability to be a father to any child.

In reality, these children have lost both parents at once, in unbearable circumstances.

How will they cope with this tragedy?

How will their wounds heal? Will they ever heal?

What scars will they carry for the rest of their lives because of the complete failure of the social and governance systems (described in the GAWG article) responsible for their care?

Who can they trust now?

Most importantly, will the cycle of violence be allowed to repeat, through neglect of these children who have known and experienced such horrific family violence? Research indicates that children exposed to violence are more likely to fall victim to, or become a perpetrator of violence. Studies show that exposure to violence within the family adversely affects the brain development of children, in the same way as when children are ‘directly subjected to physical violence.’

Who will help these children to overcome their trauma and become productive citizens?

What family security can they expect to enjoy in their most vulnerable and formative years?

The questions are endless.

What kind of father abuses and inflicts horrific harm on the mother and primary carer of his children?

On the other hand, how has this man become what he has become?

What has happened to him in his past that turned him into this?

Patriarchy – the elephant in the room

Certainly, socialisation into the patriarchal mind-set of the perceived dominant and “superior male” plays a pivotal role in turning men into things far removed from human. The culturally well-guarded fundamental concept of the inherent inequality of the sexes, of male superiority, breeds nothing but insecurity among men – who frequently fail to live up to the so-called “provider and protector” that society requires them to be. In short, this inequality breeds deep insecurity, which too often manifest in unspeakable horrors. Yet, it is “the system” – both social and governance – that upholds this inequality as a fundamental “norm” in the Maldives.

To mask this systemic hypocrisy of the “superior man”, Maldivians have created a society where blame is laid thickly on the victim of violence – usually the woman.

Victim-blaming is all pervasive and seriously toxic.

Her actions, her inaction, her looks, her clothes, her walk, her talk – or just about anything she does or is perceived to have done, is used to detract from the reality of the violent insanities of the “superior man” against her.

Let’s consider Samiya’s case.

She is blamed, either directly or indirectly, for being “silent” about her abuse. Even women’s NGO Hope for Women is not exempt from succumbing to the overwhelming tendency to identify the victim’s culpability in what happened to her. This begs the question about the level of effort made to understand and appreciate the situation of the victim of this horrific crime.

What do we imagine Samiya’s mental state to be when her internal organs are brutalised and bleeding? Didn’t Samiya seek medical treatment from her local hospital? Didn’t the healthcare provider advise her to seek treatment in Malé because they did not have the capacity to treat her – thereby, literally abandoning their responsibility towards her, despite her desperate situation? Doesn’t that same duty-bearer have a medical and legal responsibility, let alone a moral responsibility, to assess her condition in a manner worthy of a health-care provider and report to the authorities as required by law? By presenting herself to the local hospital, had Samiya NOT TOLD someone about her condition, through her very actions?

What exactly are we expecting Samiya to have done in her condition, while she was miserably failed by one of the most important duty bearers mandated to assist people in her situation? Are we expecting her to scream from the rooftop, when her lived reality is systemic abandonment, marginalisation and neglect?

Samiya was not silent. Duty bearers were silent on Samiya. The community was silent on Samiya.

By diverting attention to her action or inaction and directing our energies completely away from the criminal element and criminal actions responsible for this horror, isn’t society simply trying to absolve its collective guilt for being silent about the real injustice of this preventable tragedy?

It is indeed an acute lack of empathy that drives the conversation blaming the victim of violence for being “silent”. A quick read of “Call me Samiya”’s comment might help the reader to get a glimpse of the lived reality of intimate partner violence. It is ironic that in their statement in response to Samiya’s case, Hope for Women felt compelled to provide generic advice to victims of violence against remaining “silent”. Yet, they failed to acknowledge the failure of the relevant health-care provider to assist Samiya when she actively sought assistance.

Patriarchy is indeed an insidious beast.

It is the greatest curiosity that the “superior man” is exempt from accountability for his actions – for it is readily accepted that it must be the provocations of the female victim that leaves him with no control over his own criminal actions. The result is a society where the violent “superior man” roams free and operates with impunity. The question prominent in many minds would be whether the perpetrator of the crimes against Samiya will be free to re-offend at his leisure, following his brief period of remand? After all, so many others do just that, in the injustice system of the Maldives.

A further irony is that men are held up as “protectors of women” when in reality many fail so completely so frequently – resulting in the grim statistic we have, that 1 in 3 women is subjected to physical and/or sexual violence at some point in their lifetime.

What we must remember also is that this violence mainly happens in the sanctity of the home.

Much of this is perpetrated by members of the family.

Isn’t the home where every man, woman and child seek and expect to find respite, refuge and security every single day and night?

Isn’t the family, in the home, supposed to be the safest place for every man, woman and child?

Reflect and change – act on it

Samiya’s case must not be forgotten.

This case must be etched in our collective memory forever. This is a civic responsibility.

To stop such horrors from happening in our small communities, parents and teachers must reflect on their own active roles in producing the women and men of our society. They must reflect on the colour coded gender stereotypes and divisions they maintain and promote, superficially in pink and blue. At a deeper level this is used to solidify socially constructed ideas of inherent inequality between the “lesser” female and the “greater” male. This dangerous stereotype of discrimination serves to stunt the ability of children to view each other as dignified human beings of equal worth, regardless of the lottery of birth that is their sex.

Parents, teachers and society at large must stop branding their boys as the “superior man”. For inside every “superior man” is a frightened and confused human who is trapped in a social cage with a label he did not choose. A cage in which he is forced to conform to a demanding socio-cultural stereotype of high expectations and MAN-ness, under the heavy weight of which he invariably, pathetically breaks. Why would a society bring up its boy children to fail so badly in this way? As primary carers of children, why would women subscribe to such stereotypes, and bring up their sons to become violent failures against their daughters?

This culture of inequality which breeds violence has to be denounced. It has to be stopped. It must be decisively, actively and collectively rejected.

Social well-being cannot be achieved if violence against women continues to be our normative culture. In order to lift the scourge of violence against women in the Maldives, society must let go of the patriarchal myth of the “superior man” and grab hold of the real key to achieve a non-violent way of life. That key is the responsible practice of valuing and treating boys and girls equally without discrimination; valuing men and women as equal in dignity, worth and rights.

Nothing less than this reality check will do.

Because there is no such thing as the “superior man”.

The Rule of Fear in the Republic

 

by Mushfique Mohamed

The newly ratified Maldivian anti-terror law is designed to systematically derogate and restrict most crucial civil and political rights in a highly repressed country. The Act renders the Maldives’ first democratic Constitution to what it has been deduced to – a fig leaf to historicise continued authoritarianism. Anyone in the country could have his or her enjoyment of human rights set back to dictatorship-era standards, to an extent that will make you question whether Maldives ever transitioned from it. The 1990 anti-terror law, repealed through this Act, was enacted to prosecute Abdullah Luthufi and armed mercenaries from the People’s Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE), alleged to have perpetrated a coup d’état against the dictatorship*.

The manufactured political drama revolving around the boat blast on 28 September may be shocking, with its plot twists and emotive monologues. But because of dramatic irony, the storyline is very clear to us: this is your average tyrant purging his enemies. The explosive speedboat saga is a page turning ‘story within a story’, however, the ‘play’ has a more universal tone that stems from the human need to be free from unequal and undignified treatment. In that regard, the Maldivian antagonists have changed very little from its feudal, coup-mongering, violent predecessors.

The new anti-terror law is anything but that, it is an instrument with which the public could be terrorised. It revives the ability for political actors to legitimise abuse of power, a cause for concern given the frequency of political unrest and repression in Maldives’ past and present. The law contains vague terms, such as “undue influence against the government” and “unlawful promotion of a particular political, religious or other ideology”, unfound in the law’s interpretation provisions, however defined as terrorism, in addition to “creation of fear among the public or within a specific group.” It is no coincidence that the definition of terrorism does not explicitly include violent extremism, or religious extremism – the most prevalent type of terrorism today. It makes it clear that the regime’s efforts to counter violent extremism are insincere.

When the bill was sent to parliament, opposition parliamentarians highlighted the lack of provisions regarding terrorism financing and Maldivian citizens joining foreign terrorist organisations. The former head of intelligence Mohamed Hameed criticised the Act in an op-ed on Maldives Independent before the Act was ratified, arguing that it fails to focus on terrorism-related concerns that are endemic to the Maldives such as terrorist recruitment and violent jihad. Hameed claimed that “comprehensive reforms and measures such as public awareness, early intervention and rehabilitation programmes to combat extremism must be put in place, along with or before the passage of this bill.” He went on to say that the government must look at the “comprehensive picture on the problem of religious extremism” and introduce a “cross-government strategy to tackle it,” while acknowledging increasing religious extremism “as a very first step.”

Former Deputy Prosecutor General and UNDP’s expert on the 2014 penal code, Hussein Shameem claimed in his commentary that all the offences mentioned in this Act – some 19 offences – have already been mentioned in the new Penal Code. Shameem pointed out that the Act does not criminalise certain “inchoate offences,” which are addressed under the Penal Code 2014. “As it is written in this Act, attempting or planning to initiate training to commit an act of terrorism, or planning to leave to fight in a foreign war are not considered criminal offences,” he said.

In order to limit executive influence on how terrorist groups are defined, modern anti-terrorism laws contain a parliamentary approved list of proscribed organisations. While the Act heavily mentions “terrorist groups”, it does not include an annex of groups that the government considers to be tied to terrorism. Instead the president has the power to proscribe organisations.[1] Apart from the president, the judiciary – an institution in which 51% of the public does not have confidence – is given discretionary powers to decide whether literature promotes terrorism.[2]

For instance, a statement given during investigation could be used as documentary evidence in court.[3] It is a practice thought to have ended with the new Constitution, which requires judges to rule based on witness testimonies rather than investigative statements. The Act inscribes anti-democratic actions that have been taking place in spite of democratisation efforts. In violation of international human rights law and constitutional protections against pre-trial detention, the Act enables offenders to be held in remand until completion of the trial.[4] The presumption of innocence before proven guilty is watered-down to the regime’s official line – guilty as charged, even prior to prosecution.[5] A person who was acquitted could be discriminated against, simply for being previously accused of any crime. The concern here is not absconding trial, but the existence of unproven guilt, which should not be up for consideration at a forum that claims to administer justice.

Constitutional protections such as the right to remain silent, the entitlement to be released from pre-trial detention and the right to legal assistance of one’s own choosing are derogated. The use of these narrowed down rights can be used against the accused, but its probative value during trial is unstipulated.[6] The evidentiary standards are lowered for the purposes of this law in the following manner.[7] A confession made during investigation can be considered as evidence in a court of law. The right to a lawyer can be withheld if one is not appointed within six hours of detention, and client-attorney privileged correspondence can also be adduced to prove guilt of terrorism offences. In most circumstances, dying declarations would be considered hearsay, however this law considers it as evidence if such a declaration indicates guilt of an individual.

The Maldivian judiciary, known to suspend lawyers and sentence people in absentia can now issue monitoring and controlling orders in the same manner if the Home Minister requests.[8] The procedure known as “monicon,” found in Chapter Four of the Act can be initiated pursuant to a High Court order authorising monitoring of terror suspects. Electronic devices such as mobile phones and laptops can be monitored, intercepted and recorded using the monicon order.[9] Additionally, police can enter an address unspecified in a court order if a suspect is known to be in it,[10] they can take photos inside private property,[11] restrict movement[12], and acquire information about your home and who you share it with.[13] All of this might not be alarming to many Maldivians because these opaque actions are realities that wax and wane depending on the regime’s whims. But now, if you are a suspect – using the controversial order – the Home Minister can electronically tag[14] and “rehabilitate” you,[15] even if you are below 18 years of age.[16]

The assumption of powers by the executive is inconsistent with terrorism-related concerns of the country, and the timing of the enactment is ominous. In March this year, the regime imprisoned former President Mohamed Nasheed and former Defence Ministers Tholhath Ibrahim Kaleyfaanu and Mohamed Nazim using the anti-terror law enacted during the 30-year dictatorship. Although this anti-terror has new legal language and powers, it is resonant of a newer version of the old anti-terrorism law. Similar to the old law, little importance is given to the definition of violent extremism, making the Act’s objectives uncertain. The draconian legislation allows executive to usurp the counter-terrorism mandate, introducing reinvented Orwellian methods to strengthen grip on power. If seen through the lens of the 47-year old republic’s history, the anti-terror law is an authoritarian intervention to the rule of law, rather than a genuine effort to counter terrorism.

[1] Article 18 (a) of the Anti-Terror Act 2015

[2] Article 9(b) of the Anti-Terrorism Act 2015

[3] Article 29(a), number 3 of the Anti-Terrorism Act 2015

[4] Article 26 of the Anti-Terrorism Act 2015

[5] Article 26 (b) of the Anti Terrorism Act 2015

[6] Articles 21 to 24 of the Anti-Terrorism Act 2015

[7] Article 27 of the Act lists types of evidence that can be adduced.

[8] Article 35(b)

[9] Article 50

[10] Article 54(c)

[11] Article 59(b)

[12] Article 47

[13] Article 46(a)2

[14] Article 53(a)

[15] Article 52

[16] Article 45

Author’s Clarification (Added on 16 November 2015)

*The anti-terror law enacted in December 1990 during the dictatorship of Maumoon Abdul Gayoom – brother of Abdullah Yameen Abdul Gayoom – was drafted in response to Sangu, a newspaper critical of the regime that was banned in June 1990. The regime retrospectively prosecuted Nasheed under the Anti Terrorism Act 1990 for an article he wrote about corruption, published earlier that year, by “Sangu” and “The Island;” a Sri Lankan newspaper. Nasheed was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment on 8 April 1992, but released in June 1993. The alleged coup-makers Abdullah Luthfee and the Tamil mercenaries were prosecuted under the old penal code prior to the 1990 anti-terror law.

About the author: Mushfique Mohamed is a practising lawyer at Hisaan, Riffath & Co., and also works as a consultant for Maldivian Democracy Network.

The Gemanafushi Stoning Ruling

lightningbolt

by H Abdulghafoor

It seemed like a blip in media time.

However, the court ruling to stone a woman to death for adultery issued by a magistrate in the Maldivian island of Gemanafushi in Gaaf Alif Atoll cannot be forgotten simply because it was revoked the same day by the benevolence of the Supreme Court.

Around sunset on Sunday 18 October 2015, the horrific news broke. By midnight the same day, the swift intervention undermining the ruling by the highest court in the land made the shocking news seem like a particularly bad rumour. It is of course, not a bad rumour – it is a very real travesty of justice or what is otherwise referred in social media circles as #MvInjustice. A common concept well understood by the Maldivian public.

The Gemanafushi Stoning Ruling is in fact a social lightning flash that happened inside a political hurricane.

The thunder will take time to rumble into earshot.

Its reverberations will be felt far into the future.

The Maldives has had a history of brutality and savagery within its criminal “justice” system. However, as a member of the United Nations, the country has acceded to the International Bill of Human Rights which gives it a strong veneer of respectability among the family of nations. The Maldives is also party to most of the core UN human rights conventions including the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT, since 2004) and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW, since 1993). The country is also party to the Optional Protocols to both these Conventions. This year, the Maldives celebrates its 50th year as a member of the UN. In fact, the Maldives has performed so well in its engagement with the UN human rights system that the country became a member of the UN Human Rights Council in 2010. It remains a member, having been re-elected in 2014. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs jubilantly embraced the prestige of this membership declaring that

The Maldives stood for the voiceless in the international society; for the issues that affect the very fundamental values of human rights yet, hardly get a mention in global human rights debate; and it stood for helping the vulnerable and emerging democracies to cultivate the values of human rights in their societies.

Evidently, the country’s intentions to advocate for the voiceless and vulnerable are honourable.

The concerned and thoughtful public in the country immediately began to ponder the gravity of the unprecedented development that took place in Gemanafushi. What has this country become? Where are we headed? Stoning is an atrocity that we hear of happening in “other” “backward” and “uncivilised” countries with the greatest disregard to the human rights of citizens. It is something witnessed only on film, told in stories about foreign lands. What kind of judge delivers such a barbaric ruling, to initiate a practice that has never been seen in the Maldives – a country with a people proud of its long 800 year Islamic history, unfailing in their devotion to Islam as a collective? How able is this magistrate to issue such a ruling? How sane is he? Is he in fact, fit for responsible public office? Such questions would roll incessantly in the minds of those who think. The Gemanafushi Stoning Ruling is a seismic shock to the body politic.

The practice of stoning conjures up the kind of barbarism the Hindu cultural practice of Sati or widow burning does, which took place in India historically. Linda Heaphy in her researched article on Sati wrote that

Sati was regarded as a barbaric practice by the Islamic rulers of the Mogul period, and many tried to halt the custom with laws and edicts banning the practice.

The fact that Sati was deemed unacceptable by the Islamic Mughal Emperors of India during the 16th and 17th centuries indicates the rejection of that horrific traditional practice by Muslims of the Asia region, even at that time in history. Sati was finally outlawed in 1827 by the Governor General of India “claiming it had no sound theological basis.”

Stoning is such a practice in Islamic cultural history. It is a disputed and debated topic by Muslim scholars, having no consensus. Although still practised in ultraconservative societies such as Iran, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, it is banned by other Muslim nations such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Tunisia and Algeria. Stoning is rejected as barbaric and inhuman by progressive thinkers and human rights advocates around the world, including in those countries where it is practised.

The Gemanafushi Stoning Ruling is especially problematic because the Maldives has never considered this practice as a valid form of punishment in its long Islamic history. In that ruling, the punishment was meted out to a mother of five children who allegedly “confessed” to having a child out of wedlock. In the Maldives, the vast majority of adultery convictions and the customary punishment of public flogging are carried out against women. Available data shows that in 85% of cases, women are convicted for adultery as opposed to 15% men. In the Gemanafushi case, the complete absence of any reference to the involvement of a man in the conception of the child is telling, and unsurprising. Adultery allegations are just one area where women experience systemic discrimination.

According to Iranian scholar, Muslim feminist and Musawah advocate Ziba Mir-Hosseini,

Islamic sources of law are explained in many ways that allow for the discrimination of women. We often hear about stoning as punishment for adultery, or practices like female circumcision, but there are also laws that affect a woman’s right to education, employment opportunities, inheritance rights, dress and freedom to consent to a marriage. ….

There are women who might get stoned to death at any time, and we can’t help them right now, even though I know that stoning shouldn’t be part of Islamic law.

The campaign Violence Is Not Our Culture says that in the Islamic Penal Code of Iran, a single judge may rule “to his personal opinion instead of hard evidence” and “most stoning sentences … are issued not on the basis of testimony or confession but on the judge’s “knowledge” or “intuition”. In the Gemanafushi case, it is unclear whether the sentencing was based on the intuition of the magistrate, although a confession is alleged. However, the Supreme Court’s statement nullifying the ruling said that the sentencing was not conducted in line with judicial principles and procedures.

In the patriarchal society of the Maldives, it is evident that interpretations of Islam have been increasingly radicalised, undermining and solidifying ideologies that view women as subordinate to and placed at the service of men. An alarming development that helps to explain what is happening in the Maldives today is captured by the Maldivian Democracy Network’s (MDN) recent analysis of the Islamic curriculum in Maldivian schools.   The study found that the Islam textbook for grades 8 to 12 (13 to 17 year age group) taught that the religious rulings on “unlawful sexual relationships” involved the following :

1 – The man who is married and has consummated his marriage shall be sentenced to death by stoning.

2 – The man who is unmarried shall be lashed 100 times and banished for a year.

3 – The slave’s punishment will be half of that of a freeman, therefore 50 lashes.

Besides endorsing execution by stoning as “Islamic”, the text implies the acceptability of slavery as normative in Islamic culture. The fact that the Maldives has signed international treaties which obligate the State to respect, promote, protect and fulfil the human rights of citizens and categorically reject practices that violate basic human rights – including capital punishment and slavery – do not feature in school textbooks. Instead, the narrative provided to school children in their grade 9 textbook informs them that

there is a propaganda effort by the West to elect adherents of ‘Western ideology’ … to policymaking and governing positions in Islamic communities.

The MDN study highlights the presence of xenophobia and intolerance towards other faith groups within the school textbooks, observing that “even Islamic sects other than Sunni Islam are categorically maligned under this curriculum”.

According to Violence is Not Our Culture, the global campaign to stop violence against women in the name of culture, stoning is not endorsed in the Qur’an.

… there is no mention of stoning in the Quran, and the practice is only implied in the Hadith in the context of the Prophet Muhammad’s dealing with Jewish Law.

In fact, the practice of stoning is considered to have a history in Greek and Jewish culture, among others. It is also considered by some sources to be a pre-Islamic Arab cultural practice. The fact that a practice historically attributed to Judaism is being accepted as “Islamic” is a curious irony in the Maldives context where antisemitism is palpable among conservative segments of the population.

The judicial system in the Maldives has been under great scrutiny and study over the last decade. According to the August 2015 mission report to the Maldives by the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), from 2003, the education of judges involved a “part-time one-year certificate course in “Justice Studies””. Further, “many of the sitting judges … had little or no formal legal education.” To address this, many sitting judges are currently undertaking higher education courses, as is the case with the Gemanafushi magistrate who issued the stoning ruling. The appropriately entitled ICJ report “Justice Adrift : Rule of Law and Political Crisis in the Maldives” observed further systemic issues, as described in this extract.

A number of recent criminal proceedings have displayed a pattern of violations of due process and fair trial rights under the ICCPR and the Maldives Constitution. The mission observed that the Maldives has no procedural laws such as a criminal procedure code, evidence code or codes of conduct for judges or prosecutors. The mission noted that the absence of these basic legal frameworks for criminal proceedings have helped enable courts and prosecutors to conduct criminal proceedings in an often arbitrary or biased manner, without regard for internationally recognised procedural safeguards and other fair trial guarantees.

The Gemanafushi Stoning Ruling is an indicator of the convulsions Maldivian society is experiencing in its current fragile state – socially, culturally and politically. It is an indicator of grievous political irresponsibility, the absence of just intentions toward the public good and toward good governance. It is indicative of an approaching tipping point resulting from years of neglect of the education system and curricula. Furthermore, it is the consequence of the unwillingness of key stakeholders to establish a functional justice system based on the provisions of the 2008 Constitution. It is above all a critical indicator of the loss of identity, common values of humanity, connection to community and cultural coherence. The combined effect of intolerance, radicalisation and weak governance produces a toxic social result, which is the lightning flash witnessed in the Gemanafushi Stoning Ruling. It must be rejected wholeheartedly and vocally by the Maldivian public, to reclaim their identity as a peaceful and justice loving people.