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Gayyoom orders NSS to bash reformists and Maldivian Democratic Party members

Maldives Culture report - 18 August 2004

NSS armed with batons after Gayyoom declares emergency rule on Friday

Brutal and sustained attacks on reformists by President Gayyoom and the National Security Service (NSS) are continuing in Maldives after the declaration of emergency rule.

Members of the Maldivian Democratic party and Special Majlis are being targeted by the NSS who began assaulting men and women with batons and metal pipes, and making arrests on Friday afternoon. There are no reports of Dr Mohamed Munavvar and Ibrahim Hussain Zaki being present at Republican square, but these two men were assaulted and arrested on the orders of President Gayyoom.

Without warning, the NSS kicked in the doors at Munavvar's house and broke windows before arresting him, according to an eyewitness account, and they stole jewellery and other items. Munavvar was badly beaten.

Earlier in the week, Ibrahim Hussain Zaki's wife's house was vandalised by a gang hired by Abdulla Yameen (Gayyoom's brother, STO boss and Minister of Trade). This same gang inititiated violence at the Republican Square vigil on Thursday night and Friday.

The NSS have beaten Ali Abdullah, Mohamed 'Anni' Nasheed's father-in-law, and smashed his glasses after arresting him. Aminath Najeeb and Jenny Latheef from Mohamed Latheef's family were arrested. Wealthy businessman and Special Majlis member Buruma Gasim was beaten and interned, along with his Special Majlis colleagues Ilyas Hussein, Ibrahim Ismail, Dr Hussain Rasheed, Ali Faiz and Mohamed Shihab.

Sandhaanu prisoner Ahmed Didi speaks at Republican square

Six NSS burst into the house of Sandhaanu writer Mohamed Zaki and arrested Mohamed and Ahmed Ibrahim Didi. They were dragged into the police van as they tried to co-operate. The NSS also re-arrested Sandhaanu prisoner Fathimath Nisreen who was already under house arrest, and took her brother Mohamed Niyaz into custody.

Maria Maniké, the mother of murdered prisoner Hassan Evaan Naseem, was also arrested. She has been a vocal critic of Gayyoom's suppression of the report into the death of her son and others at Maafushi jail in September 2003.


	Fulhu
	Ziyad

Other prominent reformists arrested after the imposition of emergency rule include:

- Asif, who had organised many reform gatherings including his own birthday party when Gayyoom prohibited any public place to be hired for such gatherings.

- Mohamed Yoosufy (Fulhu), one of the reform activists whose arrests led to the vigil.

- Ziyad, a member of MDP. He sustained serious injuiries after being beaten by NSS.

- Susan Ibrahim Fulhu and Mahir were arrested.

- Zuhaira, who spoke in many reform gatherings including the Republican square vigil. After the emergency, the NSS displayed her photo on TV and described her as 'a wanted person'. She phoned the NSS and told them nobody had contacted her to say she was 'wanted'. The NSS then arrested Zuhaira at her house.

Almost 200 people have been arrested according to Maldive government spokesmen. Others known to be in detention are Aku, an artist and web designer, the businessman Abdullah, and Fauzan Abbas, 'Fauz', a surfer and graphic designer who was seen trying to discourage young men from throwing stones at NSS headquarters on Thursday night. He was arrested while leaving Republican square.

The arrested people are being kept in Dhoonidhoo jail near Male', and at a NSS training island in Girifushi island further north on Male' atoll. The prisoners are blindfolded and systematically beaten and tortured.

ibrahim fareed, pro-reform Islamic preacher, Maldives

Preacher Ibrahim Fareed in the midst of his supporters last Wednesday after his court appearance for 'causing religious disunity'

A truck filled with NSS troops arrived in the street at the house of the wife of pro-reform preacher Ibrahim Fareed. They captured him upstairs. Fareed had been a prominent speaker at Republican square on Friday morning. A small man, Fareed was shoved and held by the neck from behind as the NSS led him away. That night, NSS officers surrounded Fareed in a circle in the basement of their headquarters and beat and kicked him 'like a human football', according to an eyewitness. Fareed kept screaming, 'Allah is Great!'

Apart from updates on the President's office website, which was unaffected by the government-ordered cuts to Internet, Maldives official Internet media failed to report the emergency for two days.

Haveeru's first editorial about the emergency warned its readers that wrong-doers in a family must be punished.

Aafathis newspaper (owned by Abbas Ibrahim, Gayyoom's brother-in-law) carried an editorial on Monday describing the vigil at Republican square as 'a rebellion against the government' and an obstacle to democratic reform because the Special Majlis session due to start that day had to be cancelled. Aafathis lamented that Maumoon Gayyoom's design for a 'proper and perfect democracy' would be delayed.

Government spokesman Ahmed Shaheed was quoted saying the Republican square crowd had not been satisfied 'even when three people were released, and then another three!' He also said the noisy street protest after Fareed's trial on Wednesday had prompted complaints from frightened people.

President Gayyoom is asking people to believe that emergency rule is an appropriate answer to a peaceful crowd's demand for the release of writers, an artist, a secretary and media technicians. According to Gayyoom, the sensitive population of Male' is scared by the sight of a red-bearded Islamic zealot in calf-high cotton pants with a plastic water bottle in his hand.

Anyone in Male' who saw what the NSS did to Muad Zaki on Friday afternoon would have genuine cause for concern. He went to the square to see what was happening and had just finished lunch at shore-front cafe when the NSS came charging down the road. They bashed him into the sea and Muad hit the side of a boat. The NSS swore at him as he lay in the water and accused him of pretending to be injured. They dragged him out by his hair and neck, taking him into custody in his soaked clothes.

crowd flees charging nss in maldives capital, 13 friday 2004

Sequence of photos shows NSS chasing people from the Republican square in Male' at the start of emergency rule on Friday afternoon, 13 August

Abdullah Fayaz aged 19 years from Beydhanaage house in Maafanu ward is in Male' hospital in a serious condition. Previously he had backbone surgery after a skating accident, and now his spinal cord is damaged by a brutal beating from the NSS. Women and boys as young as sixteen years were beaten on the president's orders in the streets of Male' on Friday.

Gayyoom is spitefully bashing anyone who has dared to criticise him. His last crackdown was in February this year when people tried to organise a peaceful protest against the President's Office's whitewash of the NSS murder of Evaan Naseem in Maafushi prison in September 2003. This time, Gayyoom is facing more than an outraged public.

nss search man on Maldives street, officer struts in street

NSS officer struts in a Male' street while a man is searched behind him
Source: Haveeru

The reform meetings in Male' over the last few months have been a remarkable and inspiring success. There is now much greater public awareness and understanding of the constitutional changes the Special Majlis is empowered to create. Many Maldivians support limitation of the power of the president and appointed officials, and a greater role for properly elected representatives and impartial judges.

Within only a few weeks, these meetings achieved far more political education among Maldivians than twenty-six years of the president's lectures about guided and 'special' democracies. The Maldivian Democratic Party is respected by an increasing number of Maldivians and foreigners because it has a progressive agenda and believes in intellectual persuasion and discussion, rather then propaganda, violence and secret gangs. Even apolitical Maldivians are disgusted by Gayyoom's NSS bashings and arrests. Support for the dictator has disappeared beyond the small group of relatives and cronies who benefit directly from his rule.

Gayyoom and his Baathists always resort to violence when they are criticised and confronted with their political failures, corruption and legal abuses. During the Thursday night vigil at Republican square, the behaviour of the NSS resembled the bravado of primary school bullies. Their chief officer Mohamed '22' Zahir participated in petty disruptions like trying to run off with the PA system.

Picture added by Dhivehi Observer

The NSS is not being used in this emergency to establish law and order; it is acting as a gang of thugs against a non-violent democratic movement on behalf of the political and financial interests of NSS commander-in-chief Maumoon Gayyoom. The president has been publicly lying about his support for the democratic reforms demanded by his people and international advisors, and he needed an excuse to abort the Special Majlis. Gayyoom's manufactured 'emergency' and arrests and beatings of many of the reformist Special Majlis members, serves this purpose.

The Gayyoom period is widely known for the economic boom enriching landowners and resort investors in Male', but there is also a grim hidden reality of malnutrition and economic depression in the atolls where 75% of the population live, of torture and murder in the prisons, theft of government taxes and business funds, and the constant threat of NSS violence.