This Week in Maldives: March 12

Because unforeseen London romances and new beginnings have ruined everything, this week the regime deals with social media activists, a Sun Online journalist has never viewed pornography, a Saudi tyrant’s impending visit disrupts citizens’ lives, and a Yameen finally brings in some foreign investment for the first time.

These are short takes on the headlines of the week gone by.
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Social media activist transferred to house arrest after one year in custody

Ahmed Ashraf, more commonly known as Shumba Gong, was transferred to house arrest after over a year in jail without a conviction.

Shumba Gong may have been an insufferable twat, but he was still a minor at the time of his arrest from Sri Lanka in November 2015.

He was originally arrested on the pretext of his involvement in YAGs speedboat explosion, but was later charged with sending threatening messages. (In the ensuing diplomatic fracas, the Sri Lankan government issued the most sternly worded rebuke of the Maldives regime that I have ever seen)

Now that Shumba appears to have finally hit puberty while in jail, I wish he’s come out of the place a bit wiser.

Just months before his arrest by the regime, Shumba was celebrating the arbitrary detention of hundreds of democratic activists by the regime, and cheered on as the crackdown was celebrated with fireworks by his benefactor, former regime VP Ahmed Adeeb, who too is hilariously in jail as I type.

Import duty hiked for cigarettes and energy drinks

Good.

“Lewd” music video under investigation

I don’t even know where to begin this. Defenders of the faith and part time ‘media’ station Sun Online posted a headline about the latest attack on Islam – a “pornographic” music video.

I watched the whole wretched thing and there was plenty to complain about (terrible dancing and twerking fails, to name just a few) in the nearly four minute long cringe-fest. But pornography certainly wasn’t one of them. There wasn’t even any skin on display.

Sun Online’s Clark Kent must have forgotten to turn his X Ray vision off.

Or he has never quite come across actual pornography in his life… which, come to think of it, kind of explains several things.

Malaysian company awarded $57.5m project to build five airports

They awarded the contract to an Oil & Gas company, and not to a company that actually builds airports or anything like that.

Because that would be too weird.

MDP quarters raided ahead of Saudi King visit

Regime police raided MDP premises and confiscated almost everything ahead of a visit by the Saudi tyrant Salman bin Abdul Aziz next week.

Wherever the Saud family’s odious tentacles have spread, citizens have automatically been deprived of their human rights. So this isn’t exactly surprising.

Police crack down as Faafu protesters demand answers over Saudi-funded project

Dhivehin can’t speak their minds in Dhivehi Raajje because a feeble, semi-lucid Saudi tyrant might be displeased.

Is there anything more humiliating?

Hefty fines imposed on Raajje TV

The Maldives Broadcasting Commission, seen above posing in shiny garments, imposed huge fines on opposition aligned Raajje TV for allegedly defaming some social worker in Addu.

This is the first such fine imposed under the disgusting Defamation Act that was passed last year to muzzle the press.

The only detail to note here is that the station is opposition aligned, so you can expect more of this.

Two Maldivian dudes win €20,000 in seed funding at Wired event 

Okay, so this is all very meta.

The two dudes, Mohamed Shuraih and (an uncommonly handsome-) Yameen Rasheed won the seed funding for their pitch for a mobile healthcare access platform to incentivize blood donation at the Wired Health event in London this week.

The #SandozHACk challenge was a global competition announced by Sandoz, a division of pharmaceutical giant Novartis.

The news is kind of cool because it was an actual goddamned WIRED event, and because the idea won top place out of over 150 ideas submitted globally.

But as the astute twitter commentator @ahmode89 pointed out, this is also the first documented instance of a Yameen bringing in actual, no strings attached foreign investment into the country.

You’re welcome.

PPM proposes barring military from voting

The opposition jumped at the chance to ‘defend’ the military’s sacred right to vote.

Not me. I think the military should be disbanded altogether. Despite Muizzu’s heroic efforts, there still isn’t a more criminal waste of public funds in the country than the MNDF.

There are zero justifications to operate a conventional military in a country that doesn’t even show up on most map resolutions.

Note also: this is a military that couldn’t defend themselves against a handful of unarmed rogue policemen. So fuck their voting rights. The whole institution should be scrapped, and replaced by a lean coast guard and council-run fire departments.

Police searching for Hulhumalé gang rape suspects

A 27 year old girl was gang raped in Hulhumalé. Police are allegedly looking for suspects.

Meanwhile, the regular rape apologists on the Internet appeared immediately, gleeful as always.

Make no mistake. Every one of those fuckwits is a potential rapist, and should be legally mandated to apologize every morning to the trees for being such a colossal waste of oxygen.

Policeman sexually harasses underage girl online

Speaking of oxygen thieves, the Maldives Police Service made its presence felt in the online debate about sexual harassment. A uniformed pervert made the news after he harassed a 16 year old girl by making crude comments about how she’s another porn star in the making.

They say they are here to protect and serve but little do they know when they are harassing an underage girl. Disgusting and unethical. pic.twitter.com/WvCO49TByY

— ?? (@BathoolAhmed) March 4, 2017

Thankfully, this particular 16 year old had the good sense to call him out publicly, and the police have promised to ‘investigate’ this. What’s there to investigate? Fire his ass.