:: Dhivehi Observer :: Peoples Press ::

GAYYOOM'S RIOT POLICE ATTACKED SCORES OF CHILDREN

By Mariyam Mohamed - Tuesday, 17 August 2004

As eyewitnesses start to tell their stories, a hitherto hidden aspect of Gayyoom's crackdown on dissent is starting to emerge.

Most of the people who first took the brunt of police brutality were children.

Different eyewitnesses are concurring that when Gayyoom first unleashed his special task force on unarmed protesters, their initial rampage almost exclusively targeted boys aged 13-18 years.

One eyewitnesses claimed he saw at least 20 boys being thrown about, kicked and beaten mercilessly with batons by police.

"The police looked manic and possessed," he said, "The beatings must have resulted in serious fractures and injured backbones at the least. I wouldn't be surprised if some of them didn'tt survive the ordeal."

Other eyewitness accounts are no less shocking.

One man reported seeing 10 police officers beating up a 13 year old boy.

"After horrendously working him over, the police were trying to get his T-shirt over his head to beat him some more," he said. "Most of these kids would have wandered off to the square after Friday prayers. I can't think how the police could have mistaken them for the demonstrators."

Understandably the Maldives media is keeping quiet about the rampage. Even dissident internet sites seem to be more more concerned about the high-profile detainees and their ordeals.

What is even more disturbing is that no one seems to know for certain where the injured/dead children are.

And yet anyone who saw the initial charge by the police will tell you the captives were mostly kids.