Prospects for Human Rights in the Maldives

At first glance, the prospects for human rights reform in the Maldives may seem promising. The launch of President Gayoom’s Roadmap for the Democratic Reform Agenda in March 2006, which outlines a timetable of commitments to human rights and democratic reform, was at first well-received by the international community. Over the past weeks, informal talks between the opposition Maldivian Democratic Party and the government have led to the release of a number of political prisoners. The prospect of formal talks, which could accelerate democratic reform and strengthen human rights, looms on the horizon.

This certainly contrasts favourably with the state of human rights three years ago, when the repression of President Gayoom’s government was at its height. September 2003 saw five custodial killings which prompted public uproar, demonstrations, and property damage to certain government buildings, a reaction which Amnesty International described as “a consequence of endemic torture and unfair trials, abuse of power by the security personnel, and a lack of clear boundaries between the executive power and the judiciary”. While those problems still persist today, local and international pressure has opened up a space for freedom of expression and dissent that did not exist in 2003.

Optimists may also point to the recent passing of the Human Rights Bill by Parliament, which will revitalise the long-defunct Maldives Human Rights Commission. But these developments must be seen within a historical and political context that offers two cautionary messages. Firstly, that there is an enormous gap between commitments to human rights on paper and to human rights in practice; secondly, that it is only with sustained local and international pressure that the Government of Maldives relinquishes executive control, enshrines human rights protection in law, and applies that law fairly in practice. These two threads weave themselves through the brief overview of the prospects for human rights outlined below.

It is impossible to understand human rights in the Maldives outside of the context of recent political history. The realisation of human rights is tightly bound up with politics and, in particular, the calls for reform articulated by opposition groups locally and by the diplomatic community abroad.

For most of President Gayoom’s 28 year rule, the longest in Asia, collective dissent has been suppressed. Banishment to islands of those that were suspected of being opposed to Gayoom was common and a culture of fear all pervasive. A brief period of press freedom in 1990 was short lived: journalists critical of the government were arrested and tortured. An attempt by 42 intellectuals, businessmen, and academics in February 2001 to register the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) as a political party was rebuffed. They were denied permission on the grounds that the Constitution did not provide for the existence of political parties – a decision later reversed in June 2005.

However, the deaths in custody in September 2003 marked a watershed moment where a shocked public found a political voice. While this resulted in the persecution and exile of some key members of the MDP leadership, a threshold had been crossed. Locally, an unprecedented level of dissent was being expressed. Internationally, the Maldives’ poor human rights record was placed on the diplomatic agenda.

Following pressure from the international community and the MDP campaign from exile, President Gayoom announced in June 2004 that “the time is right for more sweeping changes… [which] is why I have proposed a new package of reforms”.

Scepticism of ‘reform’ ran high. Opposition activists pointed to the example of the Special Assembly formed by the President that deliberated a new constitution for 17 years without in the end offering any substantive reform. Outspoken criticism culminated in a police crackdown on a peaceful protest in August 2004, which resulted in the arrest of several hundred people which in turn led to additional international scrutiny of the Maldives, including a unanimously passed resolution by the European Parliament threatening sanctions against the Maldives.

Evidence shows such scepticism was warranted. The constitutional reform process, which the President declared would be finished by June 2005, is now scheduled to finish in November 2007. The Human Rights Commission established in December 2003 has been hobbled by legislation restricting its activities that fails to meet the standards of the Paris Principles. Executive control over the judiciary has been exercised through the arbitrary detention of democracy activists and sentencing in grossly unfair trials.

Today, the government now touts its Roadmap for the Democratic Reform Agenda as evidence of its commitment to human rights. But since the launch of the ‘Roadmap’ in March, repression of independents and the opposition has increased. The government has achieved this through both draconian legislation introduced under the guise of ‘reform’ and through arbitrary arrest and heavy-handed action by security forces that echo the clampdowns of 2003 and 2004. The government’s approach to the freedom of assembly and the freedom of the press illustrates these two methods clearly.

In May, 2006 the President enacted a decree entitled “Regulation on Strengthening the Right to Freedom of Assembly”, bypassing Parliament. In contradiction of the Constitution of the Maldives, which guarantees the right to freedom of assembly, and in spite of its title, the Decree has placed severe restrictions on freedom of assembly. The view of the United Nations is that this “decree contains excessive restrictions on the freedom of assembly as enshrined in the ICCPR”. For example, under the new regulations, police have the power to strike and break up an assembly at their discretion, with or without issuing any warning, and by whatever means they see fit.

This law has been abused to detain dozens of peaceful demonstrators. During a week of peaceful protests in May 2006, nearly 200 demonstrators were detained, prompting a statement from the European Union which declared that it was “very concerned over recent numerous arrests of peaceful demonstrators by security forces… [which] goes against the spirit of the Government’s Road Map for the Reform Agenda”. The United Nations echoed these criticisms, and the European Union concluded that “the activities of the Maldivian Government’s security forces cast serious doubts on a full commitment to the reform process”.

While the government now claims that this Decree will be succeeded by a Bill put to Parliament that meets international human rights standards, this is still pending, and pro-government Member of Parliaments have already rejected such a Bill put forward by the opposition.

This same unfortunate pattern of repression is also observed within the media. Only state-run television and radio is permitted by the government and overt intimidation of the independent press continues. In May 2006 a BBC journalist covering the trial of opposition party chairperson Mohammed Nasheed was pepper sprayed by the police.

Proposed legislation is equally problematic. The press freedom organisation Article 19 has criticised the Freedom of the Press Bill as falling “far short of international standards and the Defamation Bill as “vague”, “internally inconsistent”, and “poorly drafted”.

It is against this backdrop that the government’s proposals and claims to strengthen human rights must be understood. While of course the government’s intimation that it will sign the International Covenant and Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, is welcome, these promises matter little if they are not reflected in domestic law and practice: the Convention on the Rights of the Child was ratified by the government in 1991, yet a survey conducted by the Maldives Human Rights Commission and the United Nations Development Program last year revealed that over 90 per cent of people believe that sexual abuse of girls is a serious problem. Scepticism is warranted until commitments on paper are translated into real action.

Political negotiations between the opposition and government may address some of the human rights issues identified above, particularly the most egregious violations of civil and political rights. Ultimately, however, the best long-term guarantor of human rights is a population that is aware of its rights and demands them of its leaders, whether they be of the current government or the opposition. In a country that for so long has been kept deliberately unaware of what human rights even are, let alone how they might be realised, such a goal will not be realised any time soon.