Feature Comment
The cult of Yameen
President Abdulla Yameen and his wife have increasingly taken to feasts, festivals and colourful ceremonies, attended by fawning ministers and MPs, as his popularity sags amid a historic corruption scandal.
09 Jun 2016, 9:00 AM
A democracy do-over in the Maldives
Abdul Ghafoor Mohamed, former Maldives ambassador to the US, examines the reasons for the anger, despair, disillusionment and hope surrounding the newly launched United Maldives Opposition.
04 Jun 2016, 9:00 AM
Maldives fighters in Syria warn government and leaders
Bilad Al Sham, the media section of Maldivians fighting in Syria, has released a YouTube video describing the country’s leaders as Taghut – unjust tyrants, opponents of the Prophet, or evil powers—they are at war with. Makers of the video describe it as ‘a small warning.’
03 Jun 2016, 9:00 AM
Our journey to Mihaaru
“31 March saw the beginning of a painful time for the team of seventy-five employed by Haveeru,” writes editor Ali Naseer. “With no means of income, life has been difficult. The group of journalists’ decision to form a new newspaper was based on their fundamental right of choosing their mode employment.”
26 May 2016, 9:00 AM
Lost in translation: the story of Haveeru
Ali Rafeeq, Haveeru’s editor from 1987 – 2010, takes a look at the ownership dispute that has shut down the Maldives’ oldest newspaper.
24 May 2016, 9:00 AM
Time to promote freedom in the Maldives
If the CMAG is unable to improve the Maldives situation, the UK should not be afraid to countenance targeted sanctions, such as travel bans and asset freezes, on the leadership of the Maldivian Government, writes MP John Glen.
18 May 2016, 9:00 AM
Maldives and the Great Game in the Indian Ocean
The Maldives, faced with economic and political crises, has reoriented its foreign policy, wherein the Chinese enjoy a place of much greater influence than they did in the past. Anand Kumar examines the emerging security scenario in the Indian Ocean.
16 May 2016, 9:00 AM
Yameen’s (?) Maldives
Although Maldives adopted a Constitution based on democratic values and principles, it is Singapore’s Lee Kwan Yew’s authoritarian capitalism that President Abdulla Yameen wants to practice in the Maldives. How likely is it that he will succeed? asks Azra Naseem
12 May 2016, 9:00 AM
Locked Up: 13 writers whose words were held against them
On World Press Freedom Day, The Maldives Independent profiles 13 men – dissidents, writers and journalists – who suffered prison, solitary confinement, prosecution, and torture for their written words.
03 May 2016, 9:00 AM
A tale of two Maldives
The simple fact is that for many months the international media and political leaders in the US, UK and Europe have heard only one side of the story about the Maldives: that promoted by Nasheed and his high-profile media lawyers, writes Foreign Minister Dunya Maumoon.
26 Apr 2016, 9:00 AM
Politics of radicalisation: how the Maldives is failing to stem violent extremism
Azim Zahir explores the array of factors that fuel radicalisation in the Maldives; “block thinking” that does not bother to understand complexities; government’s trivialising of the issue; instrumentalisation of religion by all political parties; and the “Islamisation” of gangs.
25 Apr 2016, 9:00 AM
“No sympathy for people like us:” Milestones in the life of a Maldivian death row prisoner
Hussain Humam Ahmed, 22 years, is on death row for the murder of MP Afrasheem Ali. His family fears he was framed and judged guilty because of his background of poverty and violence.
24 Apr 2016, 9:00 AM
Arresting the fourth estate
It is perhaps not the best idea to jail a bunch of journalists. It means that those who hold the pen, the power to communicate, feel a rare sense of empathy towards the rarely seen, writes Xiena Saeed.
07 Apr 2016, 9:00 AM
Maldives government abuses anti-terror law to silence public officials
The government of President Abdulla Yameen of the Maldives continues to abuse an overbroad anti-terror law as a blunt-force tool to arbitrarily and indiscriminately silence perceived political threats to his regime, writes the ICJ’s Nikhil Narayan
28 Mar 2016, 9:00 AM
Are we all going to kill Humam?
Hussain Humam was sentenced to death “through a process that has breached the principles of Islamic Shari’a, common law, international obligations and even common sense,” argues Shahindha Ismail, calling for an independent psychiatric evaluation of the 23-year-old death row inmate.
27 Mar 2016, 9:00 AM
CONI and the Coup III: The legacy
If there is a particular event which can be pointed to as the beginning of the end of Maldives’ peaceful transition to democracy, the acceptance of the 2012 CONI report as a way forward can be described as such, writes Azra Naseem.
22 Mar 2016, 9:00 AM
Islam, patriarchal discourses and gender-based violence in the Maldives
What we are witnessing in the Maldives today is the selective use of religious scriptures to give ‘divine’ endorsement of power and privilege to men and reinforce patriarchy, argues Hawwa Lubna
20 Mar 2016, 9:00 AM
One bad apple
What happens when a leadership becomes dysfunctional? What is its impact on the health of the society they rule over? Just as children mimic their parents, do citizens mimic their leaders? Does our need to follow authority make us betray the positive, fundamental values that define our humanity? Asks Latheefa A. Verall
15 Mar 2016, 9:00 AM
An attempted assassination, a jinni and the Maldives army
A Jinni led the army’s investigations into the alleged explosion on the presidential yacht, Finifenmaa, in September 2015, says a police statement leaked sometime in the morning of 2 March 2016, an extraordinary day in the life of Maldives.
10 Mar 2016, 9:00 AM
Planet 50-50 by 2030: Step it up for Gender Equality
With the next local council elections scheduled for early 2017, we must ask ourselves: how can we ‘Step it up for Gender Equality’ in Maldives? What policy actions, legislations and initiatives should we undertake to encourage more females to come out to contest and get their voices heard?
08 Mar 2016, 9:00 AM
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