Category: Police/Military

Beauty and Truth

By  Latheefa Ahmed Verrall

The heat of the day dissipates and I walk cautiously along Chandhanee Magu, towards Jumhooree Maidhaan. A crowd gathers. The road leading to the police headquarters is cordoned-off. I am told that Mariya Did is held there, to give information, ‘regarding a matter that the police are investigating.’ Mariya Didi? I recall instantly. The image of this woman, speaking at a pro-democracy gathering, has stayed with me. Courage, combined with a social conscience, is a potent mix which never fails to impress.

Beside me a woman begins to have a conversation with a young policeman; a young boy really, perhaps younger than my own children. He is separated from the crowds by a fragile stretch of yellow tape. ‘It’s not that I hate the police,’ the woman declares to the world. ‘My brother-in-law is a policeman. I just object to the fact that he is made to do things like this. He shouldn’t have to take  orders from a baagee government.’ The young man smiles. He has no answer. It occurs to me that he is as helpless as the woman who wants her opinion heard. The victim and the victimiser are trapped together in someone else’s web of ambition.

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The spy who came in from the coup

by Azra Naseem

Law and order appears to have gone a bit schizophrenic in  the Maldives in the last few days. First the Maldives Police Service (MPS) arrested its intelligence head, Chief Superintendent (MC) Mohamed Hameed, on charges of ‘endangering internal security’ by disclosing classified information.

Hameed is alleged to have co-operated with the co-authors of ‘The Police and Military Coup’, an MDP-affiliated investigation into the events of 7 February 2012. The report was released in response to the current government’s ‘findings’ into the events, published so prematurely as to be available for public feedback even before investigations began.

MPS says drafts of the Coup Report, along with commentary, were found in MC Hameed’s gmail account. (Nobody has yet answered the question of why MPS was snooping around in the man’s private email account in the first place. Is it normal for MPS to spy on their officers?)

Then the Criminal Court granted MPS a five-day extension to Hameed’s detention. He was promptly taken to Dhoonidhoo, Maldives’ most famous prison island.  Hameed’s lawyers lodged an appeal at the High Court on the same day but was not granted a hearing until  the fifth and last day of his detention. Three Justices agreed unanimously that he should be detained for five days, just hours before the five-day detention period expired.

Now, is it just me, or is it a bit difficult to get your head around the question of why the High Court would deign to deliver that judgement at that particular time?  Three more hours, and the detention order would no longer be valid anyway. So what was the eleventh hour High Court ruling for?

The High Court’s behaviour becomes all the more inexplicable in light of the fact that shortly afterwards the Criminal Court released Hameed. It saw no grounds to detain him further. All told, the judiciary does not seem to know quite what to do, with itself or, with a problem like Hameed.

What is to be done with Hameed? Was he ‘spying for the enemy camp’ as some are alleging? Or is he a heroic whistle-blower? Is he to be jailed for life, or celebrated as a voice that stood up for democracy?

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CoNI ‘Timeline’: For your opinion only

by Azra Naseem

The National Commission of Inquiry (CoNI) has not been able to begin its investigations proper yet. But, its Commissioner Ismail Shafeeu and his two ‘investigators’ have seen it fit to release a ‘Timeline’ of events that led to President Mohamed Nasheed’s resignation on 7 February.

The first page is a disclaimer, saying that the released document is ‘not a report of findings’ but a Timeline ‘with omissions’ released to seek public opinion on its contents.

Since when has opinion been needed for the establishment of facts?

And what right does Ismail Shafeeu (the Commissioner) and his two ‘investigators’ have to release anything in the name of CoNI? CoNI is yet to begin its work with the approved MDP nominee (Gaha Ahmed Saeed) and the representative of the international community, yet here it is, a so-called timeline in the name of CoNI.

People are meant to read it and send feedback to CoNI before 21 June.

So here’s an unofficial translation of the 44 page document. See what you make of it, and make sure you leave your opinion. DhivehiSitee will see to it that it gets to CoNI before 21 June.

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