Category: Parliament

Sharia and the death penalty: how Islamic is ‘marah maru’?

 

Government…can’t be trusted to control its own bureaucrats or collect taxes equitably or fill a pothole, much less decide which of its citizens to kill.

—  Helen Prejean, ‘Dead Man Walking’ 

by Azra Naseem

On July 1, a Maldivian lawyer was brutally murdered, his body stuffed into a dustbin. On June 4,  militant Islamists tried to murder Hilath Rasheed, the country’s only openly gay rights activist and a rare voice advocating secularism in the Maldives. On 30 May,  a 65-year-old man was killed on the island of Manafaru by robbers after his pension fund. On the same day, in Male’ a 16-year-old school boy was stabbed multiple times and left to bleed to death in a public park. On April 1, a 33-year-old man was stabbed to death in broad daylight by two men on a motorbike.  On February 19, a twenty-one-year-old life was taken in a case of ‘mistaken identity’.

Amidst the increasing violence and decreasing value of life, calls for restoration of the death penalty are growing. It is normal for a society experiencing unprecedented levels of crime to demand the death penalty as a solution. In the Maldives, however, the whole debate is framed within the precincts of religion, touted as a return to ‘Islamic justice.’

This is not to say other ways of looking at it are completely absent from the discourse.There’s Hawwa Lubna’s examination of the death penalty within a rule of law framework in Minivan, and Mohamed Visham’s somewhat confused and confusing analysis of its pros and cons in Haveeru, for example. Such discussions are, however, pushed to the fringes as the theme of ‘Islamic justice’ takes precedence.

My question is, how Islamic is this call for ‘Marah Maru’ [death for death]? Is revenge what underpins provisions for the death penalty in Sharia?

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From Maldives, with love

by Azra Naseem

Maldives and China haven’t had much to do with each other in much of their modern histories. In fact, so negligible have bilateral relations been that it is very likely Maldives is the only country in the world without a Chinese takeaway run by a Chinese cook.

Things have taken a dramatic turn in the last few days, though, with Maldivian legislators finding a sudden, until now undeclared, love of China, and all things Chinese. This sudden armour stems not from a particular change in Chinese policy towards the Maldives, or from the exponential growth in number of Chinese tourists visiting the Maldives. No, like many passions declared intensely by coup-supporters, it seems to stem from  hatred of the other: in this case ‘the West’ in general and the Commonwealth in particular.

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Kutti and the coup: what role MP Mohamed Nasheed?

by Aishath Velezinee

For 22 consecutive nights from mid-January 2012 onwards unrest rocked the streets of Male’. This was the planning period of the coup that ultimately brought down the first democratically elected government of the Maldives on 7 February 2012. Political opponents of then President Mohamed Nasheed led the unrest, inciting public anger against him purportedly for violating the constitution.

One of the loudest voices making the claim that President Nasheed had veered wildly off the ‘Constitutional chart’ was that of Independent MP for Kulhudhuffishi Area Mohamed (Kutti) Nasheed. The point he kept reiterating was that in ‘disappearing’ Judge Abdulla Mohamed (commonly referred to as ‘Judge Ablo’), President Nasheed had abused the Constitution.

Given Kutti’s vociferous condemnation of President Nasheed’s said constitutional violation, it seems prudent to take a critical look at Kutti’s own relationship with the constitution as well as his role in the coup, if any.

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