Comment: Honeymoon over for Maldivians in paradise

I was in the 8th grade and didn’t know much about politics, but understood enough to know that we somehow restored hope in our hearts. I got the feeling that everything was going to be all right… the tears of happiness  rolling down my father’s face were a testament to that.

After that, everything  changed. The police brutality, arbitrary arrests of politicians and democracy activists, disruption to media and freedom of expression, everything that we thought was so wrong, that we had to get out on the streets to change, became our past – things that we only joked about in our living rooms and coffee shops.

The conversation usually went like: “Hey, remember how Golhaa Force would drag Anni out on the streets of Male’ like he was some kind of dead animal?”