:: Dhivehi Observer :: Peoples Press ::

Zuhaira: The Voice

MDP - www.maldiviandemocraticparty.org - 4th Oct. 2004

Am I to be the only woman to speak up even in this time as well as then, she was heard commenting, just after she spoke at the second minvan bahus. She has always been a woman who made sure her voice was heard. She spoke up on the eve of Friday the thirteenth of August at the largest demonstration that the country has seen in the last 25 years or more. She raised her famous voice against torture and for a better future for this country; against corruption and nepotism. For that she sits in a solitary cell in Dhoonidhoo one of the interrogation centers of the current regime of Maumoon Abdul Gayyoom. Zuhaira is one of the 10 women taken in by the regime in relation to the demonstration.

Zuhaira is well known for her powerful voice that reigned the radio waves of the country at better times. From reading the news, dramas, advertisements to giving commentary on sports and covering important national events, she served the then Radio Maldives with pride. The Society for Health Education (SHE), one of the founder members of which is none other than the first lady Nasreena Abdul Gayyoom, on many occasions has used Zuhairas powerful voice at the famous SHE festival, to attract a large crowds to their festival. She used the same voice to persuade the demonstrators at the gathering to remain calm when undesirable elements tried to disrupt the peaceful gathering.

She has been closely associated with most of the elite of the ruling regime in the early days when this regime was better known for the good they did that the human rights abuses they are perpetrating now. She showed her true caliber acting in the best known pieces of art in the country, the film Boduthakurufaanu, as the wife of Viyazoru. She acted along side Adam Zahir the then much loved school teacher and now the hated and feared Commissioner of Police as well as the then comedian and intellectual Abdul Rasheed Hussein and now the dubious Minister of Labour.

She once publicly professed to being addicted to rulers but even this hard core supporter of the regime finally changed her mind after witnessing the ceaseless deception and abuses of the current regime. The final straw was when her self professed second son, her favorite nephew was locked in solitary confinement for no other reason than speaking up against this brutal regime.

In her early teens and twenties she was a well known figure in the field of sports, competing and winning medals in hockey, tennis, and badminton and volley ball. She gave up her very public life to be there for her children as they grew up. Having seen her children grow up she continues to take pleasure in writing and contributing to making people beautiful.