Category: Media

Murder most revealing: L.Corporal Haleem’s death & the burial of truth

by Azra Naseem

Last Sunday night Lance Corporal Adam Haleem was stabbed to death on the island of Kaashidhoo. He was en route to duty and in full uniform. He died from multiple stab wounds just after midnight. He was 26 years old, and the father of a son not yet a year old.

Before the young policeman’s body was cold, his death had become a political opportunity for many. Politicisation of life and death is not a new phenomenon in the Maldives. It was  on the rise before the change of government on 7 February. But the extent to which the current ‘Unity Government’ of Dr Mohamed Waheed Hassan Manik is going, to squeeze every drop of political juice from the death of Lance Corporal Hameed, is a revolting spectacle to behold.

It was Dr Waheed himself who set the ball rolling.

What was this about hate-mongering? What did he mean? Was the policeman’s murder linked to the current political unrest? That was certainly the inference, as he reiterated shortly after:

 

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Maldives Police Service: a government tool for restricting freedom of assembly

by Azra Naseem

Everybody knows. Without the Maldives Police Service, the coup d’état of 7 February would not have been possible.

It is there, in Ismail Shafeeu’s premature speculation published as the CoNI Timeline. Police refused to obey orders, mutinied, took over state institutions and incited public disorder to an extent that led to the illegal demise of the country’s first democratically elected government. And, thanks to the Inside Man–MC Hameed the former intelligence chief turned whistle-blower–it’s also there in the Ameen-Aslam Coup Report, with details of which officer did exactly what.

From the very beginning, coup planners recognised how important police support was for the successful execution of their plan. The Coup Report says, for instance, that some of its masterminds met in a private apartment in Male’ at a date unknown in September 2011.

In this meeting, the Warrant Officer grade 1 stated that the only way to oust President Mohamed Nasheed from power would be for approximately 500 police and military personnel to come out and protest in Republic Square.

Now that things have gone according to plan, it is becoming clear that the police have been assigned just as crucial a role in sustaining the new regime as they had in installing it.

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‘Too many tweets make a twat’?

by Azra Naseem

British Prime Minister, David Cameron, when asked for his views about politicians on Twitter, famously replied: ‘Too many tweets might make a twat.” Cameron was discussing the instantaneousness of modern communication, and the perils of politicians Tweeting without thinking.

It should be said that neither side of the divided Maldivian political landscape are too keen to listen to Cameron right now. The authoritarians have a bone to pick with him for declaring President Nasheed his ‘new best friend’ and ‘ideal stag party-companion’ not long before the coup; and Nasheed’s supporters aren’t happy with him for abandoning his new best friend at the first sign of trouble. But, on lessons about Tweeting, Cameron’s advice is spot on for Maldivian politicians.

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