Category: Police/Military

And the killer is…

The government knows who killed MP Afrasheem Ali.

The Minister of Home Affairs Mohamed Jameel Ahmed has appeared in the media twice in the last week to repeat the claim. Both times he stopped short of sharing the knowledge with the public.

The first time was on 24 November, when Haveeru reported Jameel as saying “MP Afrasheem’s murderer has been found”. The only thing he shared with reporters, however, was his incredulity that the murder had been premeditated in great detail. He observed gravely:

This is a matter of serious concern.

In another Haveeru piece, on the same subject the same day, Jameel also implied that the murder involved  politicians with money and violent gangs of disaffected youth, all with the potential to be hired hit men. Again, he chose not to reveal who was involved in the suggested assassination.

Although Jameel said the killer has been found but, according to Police Commissioner Abdulla Riyaz, the investigation is ongoing. He was on-message with Jameel, though, when it came to government policy for sharing information with the public:

…details will be revealed as soon as it is time to reveal them.

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Arab Spring, Authoritarian Winter

By Mushfique Mohamed

Democratic aspirations of many countries around the world rising against authoritarian regimes early last year was a development many thought would bring progressive change to the political systems in those countries.

It came to fruition with the voice of the youth; educated young individuals affronted by the meager job opportunities and other socio-economic inequalities permeated by the oligarchic superstructure entrenched in these countries. This was the true spirit of what came to be known as the Arab Spring.

The scattered archipelago of the Maldives in South Asia, with its coastlines in the Arabian Sea, had the first ever peaceful transition to democracy by a Muslim majority country in August 2008. It was a precursor to the events in the Middle East last year. A year later, however, the events in Egypt, Syria, Libya and Tunisia, no longer resonate with the ambitions of the resistance movements seen throughout the Middle East last spring.

In Egypt, former autocratic ruler Hosni Mubarak—who first came to power three years after Maumoon Abdul Gayoom did in the Maldives—was deposed with a popular uprising backed by the military. It was an event unfathomable to many, even in the most well-informed US diplomatic circles.

Although defiant developments, these ‘Black Swan’ moments of history (as coined by Lebanese-American scholar Nassim Nicholas Taleb) have proven more beneficial for Islamists and the elite than for the young liberal movement with its political and economic grievances that initiated, organised and executed the revolts.

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Islamic extremism in the Maldives: alive and killing

by Azra Naseem

Islamic extremism is very real in the Maldives. It affects the daily lives of every Maldivian, and is gaining in scope, intensity and violence every day with the pseudo-democratic government that came to power on 7 February.

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