:: Dhivehi Observer :: Peoples Press ::

"Unlawful and false" - Gayyoom blasts his own human rights commission

By "Donim" - Wednesday, 22 September 2004

Gayyoom's stint in the Middle-East is not bringing the dictator any peace of mind, as a series of leaked documents expose more of his lies.

In an particularly embarrassing development, Gayyoom's own human rights commission sent a press release to the national media, expressing concern about the condition of the detainees arrested in August in connection with the anti-government demonstration.

According to the press release, one member of the constitutional council and several other detainees stated that they had been handcuffed, blindfolded, beaten, sexually and verbally abused.

In an interview with the BBC in August, Gayyoom had denied any torture of the detainees, including allegations that they had been handcuffed and blindfolded.

But the commission revealed that it had expressed concern about the human rights abuses to Gayyoom and recommended an independent inquiry into the treatment of the detainees.

The commission interviewed 40 detainees in just over a week when after Gayyoom arrested nearly 200 pro-democratic activists and passers-by at the demonstration, including several children.

The information ministry has denounced the press release as “unlawful and false”, and ordered newspapers to send it to the information ministry.

But the damage has already been done.

The human rights commission press release clearly indicates that Gayyoom knew about the treatment of the detainees long before he and his spokesman Dr. Shaheed denied them to the international media, and continue to do so to this day.

This is not the first time in the past few days that Gayyoom's knowledge of human rights abuses by his police officers has been exposed.

A leaked copy of a letter sent by a former National Security Services officer (Lt. Aswan who was also scapegoated for the prison incident in September last year) to Gayyoom, Anbaree, and other defense ministry officials detailed human rights abuse in Maafushi prison 6 months before guards beat to death inmate Eevan Naseem, provoking an unprecedented riot in the capital Male'.

If Gayyoom had taken preventive steps back then Eevan Naseem might still be alive today, and people might have found it easier to believe in the dictator’s promise of democratic and constitutional reforms.

Gayyoom's inaction then, and continuous attempts to deny human rights abuses by his armed forces brings to surface what Maldivians have suspected all along: Gayyoom condones the torture of his opponents and will fight to the bitter end all those who expose it.

But more lies are unlikely to help Asia's longest serving dictator.

Gayyoom is finished in the international arena, as pressure mounts from the EU and other nations calling him to end his state of emergency and suspension of basic rights.

It remains to be seen how the dictator will be greeted by his own people when he returns home.