ISSUES

Maldive Mayhem

Abdullah Amin who died from a gun shot wound to his head

The body of Hassan Evan Naseem with wounds on his  body

By Frederica Jansz

Uncontested for 25 years, a carefully planned re-election campaign by President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom was shaken to the core when hundreds of Maldivians rioted in the capital Male last Saturday. It is the first time riots have broken out under President Gayoom's iron fisted rule.

Hundreds of rioters destroyed public property following the killing of three young prisoners at Maafushi prison in a small island just off the capital. At least 100 people have been arrested while injured prisoners from the Maafushi jail were flown out from Hulhule Airport to the Apollo Hospital in Colombo for treatment. 

Even while the Sri Lankan government offered aid to Gayoom's crisis ridden nation, Maldivians are crying foul, accusing the president of a dictatorship and police brutality that has finally reached a climax.

The prison riots allegedly broke out following the death of a young inmate, Hassan Evan Naseem from Maafushi island prison. Naseem apparently died from internal haemorrhaging and had a crack on his skull. Prisoners who claim to have witnessed the assault on Naseem have said that on the night he died, the guards had wrapped him in a tarpaulin and beaten him. 

Riots broke out at the jail after it was believed that an attempt was being made by the National Security Service (NSS) which is commanded by President Gayoom to secretly bury the young man.

On Saturday afternoon at the 'New Cemetery' grave site, Naseem's mother had apparently pushed aside NSS officers trying to bury the body and pulling the lid off the coffin had revealed the battered corpse of her son, screaming out that her son had died as a result of being tortured by officers of the NSS.

The family had thereafter moved Hassan's body to the mortuary and had photographs taken which revealed injuries on one arm, wrist, lower leg and toes. The photographs were posted on the internet on a number of web sites.

However within hours, residents in the Maldives told The Sunday Leader that most of these sites could not be accessed and had been removed or blocked by the Dhiraagu internet censors in Male. 

Shootings

Angry Maldivians are charging that President Gayoom is a self appointed dictator who allows no opposition to his regime and is responsible for the shooting that took place at the Maafushi prisons last Saturday.

Following the riots and the police shoot out at the Maafushi jail last Saturday, one prisoner Ahmed Ibrahim Shiyaz arrived in Colombo on a ventilator suffering from a bullet wound in his chest. He died soon after arrival on Monday, 22. His body was initially kept at the hospital morgue and later removed by representatives from the Maldives High Commission in Colombo. 

The Colombo Chief Magistrate ordered the city coroner to hold an inquiry into the death of Ahmed Ibrahim Shiyaaz. After the inquiry the coroner ruled that Shiyaaz died due to damage to the lungs caused by gunshot injuries.

'Secret funeral'

Counsellor, Maldives High Commission in Colombo, Mohammed Gafoor said that Shiyaaz was buried in Colombo in the presence of embassy officials and a few family members who he claimed had flown to Colombo for the funeral. Gafoor however could not name the cemetery where Shiyaaz was buried or specify how many family members had indeed arrived in Colombo to attend Shiyaaz's funeral. 

Repeated requests by The Sunday Leader to get an official confirmation of the events in Male from the Maldivian High Commissioner in Colombo, Raashida Yoosuf failed to elicit any response. Even the request for a meeting with the High Commissioner was refused.

Ali Shafeeg, 19 years old, was wounded by a gun shot to the hip. He too was flown to Colombo and is still undergoing treatment. Twenty-two year old Moosa Ibraim had to undergo surgery to remove a bullet that had penetrated his body. He too remains warded in Colombo. Ibrahim Saeed is 32 years old and also underwent surgery at the Apollo Hospital to have a bullet removed from his pelvis.

Twenty such wounded and dying inmates from the Maafushi prison in the Maldives were flown to Sri Lanka last week for treatment after prison guards using AK-47 semi automatic guns shot directly at prisoners in order to control the prison riot.

Following the riots and deaths of three prison inmates, one of whom died in Colombo, the London-based human rights group Amnesty International (AI) called on the government of the Maldive Islands to end what it calls systematic political repression. 

A statement from AI issued three days after the riots said the damage to government buildings during protests in the capital, Male, on September 20 revealed the people's anger about the blatant abuse of their human rights. 

Dying prisoners

AI says disturbances are a sign of public frustration over deprivation of human rights and that torture, unfair trials and abusive power by the security forces are endemic in the Maldive Islands. This statement is a far cry from the image the Maldive Islands presents to the rest of world as it is known for its white sandy beaches and as a dream holiday destination. 

AI says the killing of at least three prisoners in jail which sparked anti-government street protests was just the latest chapter in a catalogue of human rights violations in the Maldives.

In a hurriedly arranged TV appearance on Saturday night, President Gayoom admitted that a death had occurred at Maafushi prison. But he did not mention the deaths at a later disturbance at Maafushi on Saturday when around 20 prisoners were shot. He said in his televised address that only four people have been hurt in a separate incident, and they are about to be treated in Mal‚. In a later broadcast, after the burial of another prisoner from gunshot wounds, the President admitted his error.

Maumoon Gayoom insists that the incidents at Maafushi were unrelated. It is a fact however that the death of Hassan Evan Naseem led to the unrest in Mal‚ that prompted the Maafushi prisoners to defy their guards.

Naseem's family insists that he died as a result of torture by prison guards after being found to be in possession of a cellular telephone while being held in prison. 

Furious Maldivians told The Sunday Leader that President Gayoom has always known about torture and inhuman conditions in Maldive prisons, but has done nothing during his 25 year rule to end the disgusting punishments. 

It is alleged that President  Gayoom has consistently refused to act against widespread police brutality, ignoring letters that Maldivians have written to him about torture and unjust imprisonment, and his government agencies have condemned AI reports as lies.

As head of the Maldives  legal system, the executive, and the NSS, it is believed that Gayoom would have given the orders to bury Hassan Evan Naseem without showing the body to his parents, and that he must have issued the orders to shoot the prisoners at Maafushi.

In fact in his speech to the nation on September 20, Gayoom said, "Yes, locked-up prisoners broke out of their cells and attacked the guards. Eventually they moved towards the armoury and attacked it. This is what they did! So the government was forced to take appropriate action. At first, the guards issued warnings and advice but the men would not move back. The police fired into the air, into space, at the sky, but even then they were unable to establish control, so they had to fire guns in such a way that bullets would hit people. This is also something I regret very much."

AI in its statement has called for radical reform of the criminal justice system  in the Maldives. AI has asserted that although the president had ordered an inquiry into the jail shootings, there were concerns about its independence, and the group pointed to a new wave of arbitrary arrests, saying there were reports that children were among those picked up and taken away. Unconfirmed reports allege that more than 100 people have been detained by the security forces. 

A Sri Lankan teacher meantime who had spent three months in jail last year in the Maldives has told the BBC it was common for inmates to be tortured - hung upside down on bars and beaten on their feet or submerged head first in water. 

The BBC report has quoted the teacher saying that after the beatings, the guards would throw sugar on the prisoners so they'd be bitten by ants in their cell, and he said political prisoners were kept in the same cells as ordinary criminals, where powerful lights would be kept on to make sleep difficult.

Other reports from Male allege that following the riots at Maafushi jail, thousands of people gathered near the Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital where a number of the injured prisoners were being treated including a man called Faseeh, whose fingers had been chopped off during torture. It was Faseeh who is reported to have led the protest at the Maafushi jail.

At around 8.30 p.m. on Sunday, September 21, a large crowd gathered at the New Cemetery for a second burial. This was for another prisoner, Abdulla Amin who died from a gunshot wound to his head. President Gayoom had visited the cemetery and announced that independent investigations into the shooting at Maafushi jail will be carried out by a respected individual called Abdul Sattar Moosa Didi.

In his speech to the nation, Gayoom has said, "Yes, this commission is completely independent. No person in the government can influence it. The commission will report directly to me. Whatever needs to be said to the commission, I will speak to them personally. Therefore, I would like to assure the people of Maldives that the commission will investigate this matter very well."

Comments scorned at

The President's comments with regard to the independence of such a commission have been met with scorn. Maldivians point out that it is questionable how independent this investigation will turn out to be, given that a similar investigation promised by Gayoom early this year bore no fruit. 

In January this year, another young prisoner,  Ali Shaahir aged 19, died after alleged beatings by NSS officers at Maafushi jail. 

Gayoom had promised a full inquiry but months later the investigation found childhood health problems and natural causes as being the causes for Ali's death. Maldivians charge that the torture and illtreatment of prisoners in Maldive jails has been a constant occurrence throughout the rule of President Gayoom, despite the government's consistent denials.

During last weekend's rioting in the Maldives, the election commissioner's office was burnt to the ground, while the Majlis (parliament) also suffered serious damage and records at the High Court were torched. Four police stations also suffered arson attacks and NSS officers were beaten during the rampage. Maldivians claim the spontaneous riots caused damage to symbols representing brutality and repression of the regime. 

Tear gas and rubber bullets were used as police attempted to bring the situation under control, while a night curfew has been declared since the 20th and President Gayoom left Male for the Presidential Resort at Aarah Island. Gayoom has promised that the policemen responsible for the death of Hassan Evan Naseem would be punished. 

Maldivians afraid to be identified spoke on condition of anonymity to The Sunday Leader and said that combined with the breakdown of the court system, oppressive social and sexual laws and chronic overcrowding and unemployment in the capital where over 25% of a population of some 300,000 live, this NSS intimidation and violence has been the catalyst for the first serious internal political crisis in the Maldives since the fall of the last President, Ibrahim Nasir, in the 1970s.

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