"To Serve and Protect" Gayyoom :: Dhivehi Observer

Bushry Column - 10

"To Serve and Protect" Gayyoom

By Mohamed Bushry, 26th July 2005 Bushry Column Archive

A few nights ago hundreds of people gathered near the Parliament Building. It wasn't even a gathering. Eyewitnesses say that those people were in fact queuing up to get into the parliament house the next morning. The reason for queuing up so early was that there was an important debate and commoners rarely get any space because government and police personnel in plain clothes fill up the small number of seats available in the Parliament Building.

Suddenly police personnel appeared in the scene and tried to coerce the people to go home. Some of the police personnel verbally abused the gathered people. For example, the Assistant Editor of Adduvas, Muhusin, was addressed as "Nagoo Balhu" (Dog) and ordered to leave the scene. He showed the journalists' identity card to the police and the police offices said: "Kon noos verinnehtha?" and said that no one can remove Gayyoom from power as long as "we" (the police) are here.

That night, Adduvas Weekly photographer Ali Fahudhu was arrested by police for taking pictures of the incidents. He was later released but police continue to hold some of those people whom they arrested in connection with the gathering. Police used extreme force to disperse the crowd near the parliament. It is rumored that the special police group (Star Force) has been authorized to use any means necessary to disperse any such gatherings.

As the police were photographing the gathered people, one member of the public asked the police not to photograph him. At this, the police cameraman brought his camera within about two inches of the person and continued to take pictures, while hurling abusive language at that person. Is this how the police personnel "Protect and Serve" the Maldivians?

This motto "To Protect and Serve" is engraved on the police vehicles. But is it ingrained in their actions and vocabulary? I certainly do not feel any protection when I see the blue-uniformed police officers. Their newly painted vehicles and uniforms send shivers down my spine.

We, the ordinary citizens of this country, are supposed to feel secure in the presence of our police forces. After all they are there to uphold law and order. They are not there to blindly obey any order which comes from above. They cannot forcefully disperse a peaceful gathering. Our constitution gives us freedom of expression, assembly and association. We have a constitutional right to gather peacefully.

Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) has lodged a case against the Commissioner of Police (Adam Zahir) for forcefully breaking up a peaceful gathering. As an ordinary member of the party I fully endorse this legal step taken by the party. I believe that the current constitution, despite all its shortcomings, gives us many freedoms and rights, which some people in high posts try to deny us. We should not let such people from denying us the freedom to exercise the rights that our constitution grants us.