Maldives

Maldives was an independent Sultanate from 1153 until the Portuguese invaded in 1558. They ruled for a short span of 15 years until overthrown in 1573. On December 16, 1887 the Sultan of the Maldives signed a contract with the British Governor of Ceylon turning the Maldives into a British protectorate. The Maldives gained independence on July 26, 1965 and became a Republic on 11 November 1968. It joined the Commonwealth in 1982.

Under the old constitution which came into effect in January 1998, the President was Head of State, Head of the Government, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces and of the Police of the Maldives, Head of the Judiciary, and was the supreme authority to propagate the tenets of Islam. Political parties were not allowed in the Maldives and candidates were elected on a personal basis in local constituencies.

Faced with demonstrations for political and social change, President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom chose to react with force, using police crackdowns and news censorship. The management of the daily Minivan, launched in July 2005 by people close to the Maldivian Democratic Party, have suffered repeated lawsuits and arrests.

In August 2008 President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, who had first taken office in 1978, ratified a new constitution, which allows multi-party elections. It also introduced a bill of rights and freedoms to the country for the first time, entitling citizens to freedom of assembly, association and speech. In the democratic elections held in October 2008, Gayoom was voted out of power in favour of Mohamed Nasheed, leader of the Maldivian Democratic party and an honorary member of PEN who had been imprisoned in contravention of his right to freedom of expression several times under Gayoom’s administration.

While Nasheed’s election bodes well for the future of the Maldives, and while human rights infractions seem to have become less frequent in the last two years, potential problems still remain. A major problem lies in constitution, which states that “Islam shall be the one of the basis of all the laws of the Maldives” and that “no law contrary to any tenet of Islam shall be enacted in the Maldives”. The rights and freedoms set out in the constitution are only available to citizens when they are “not contrary to any tenet of Islam”, and parliament can pass legislation which limits these rights and freedoms “in order to protect the tenet of Islam”. The constitution allows citizens no religious freedom and may permit further infringements on their right to freedom of expression should they be found to be acting “contrary to any tenet of Islam”. Nasheed has warned that Maldivians who convert from Islam or who were born to non-Muslim parents may lose their citizenship.

 
Click here to read Carole Seymour-Jones's article in The New Statesman: 'Trouble in Paradise', 11th December 2008.
 
At the current time English PEN has no Honorary Members in Prison from the Maldives.
 
Sources: For further information, based on primary research, see the annual reports from Amnesty International (http://www.amnesty.org/), the Committee for the Protection of Journalists (http://www.cpj.org/), Reporters Without Borders (http://www.rsf.fr/) and the International Freedom of Expression eXchange (http://ifex.org/). See also the Maldivian Constitution (http://www.maldivesinfo.gov.mv/home/upload/downloads/Compilation.pdf). For more general information on the Maldives, see the Foreign and Commonwealth Office country profile (www.fco.gov.uk).

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