Torture by Police, Forced Disappearance & Other Ill Treatment In the early years of the 21st Century, 2000 to
2025 gvnet.com/torture/Maldives.htm
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CAUTION: The following links
have been culled from the web to illuminate the situation in the
Maldives. Some of these links may lead
to websites that present allegations that are unsubstantiated or even
false. No attempt has been made to validate their authenticity or to
verify their content. HOW TO USE THIS WEBPAGE Students If you are looking
for material to use in a term-paper, you are advised to scan the postings on
this page and others to see which aspects of Torture by Authorities are of
particular interest to you. You might
be interested in exploring the moral justification for inflicting pain or
inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment in order to obtain critical
information that may save countless lives, or to elicit a confession for a
criminal act, or to punish someone to teach him a lesson outside of the
courtroom. Perhaps your paper might
focus on some of the methods of torture, like fear, extreme temperatures,
starvation, thirst, sleep deprivation, suffocation, or immersion in freezing
water. On the other hand, you might
choose to write about the people acting in an official capacity who
perpetrate such cruelty. There is a
lot to the subject of Torture by Authorities.
Scan other countries as well as this one. Draw comparisons between activity in
adjacent countries and/or regions.
Meanwhile, check out some of the Term-Paper resources
that are available on-line. ***
ARCHIVES *** 2020 Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices: Maldives U.S. Dept of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and
Labor, 30 March 2021 www.state.gov/reports/2020-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/maldives/
[accessed 28 July
2021] TORTURE AND OTHER
CRUEL, INHUMAN, OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT The Human Rights
Commission of Maldives (HRCM) reported receiving 28 complaints of torture, 17
accusing the Maldives Police Service (MPS), 10 accusing the Maldives
Corrections Service (MCS) and one accusing employees of state run Kudakudhinge Hiya children’s home, but none were
forwarded for prosecution and some investigations were closed due to lack of
evidence. In November 2019 the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture expressed
concern regarding “near complete impunity” for officials accused of torture
since 2013 and noted the PGO routinely dismissed torture cases citing lack of
evidence indicating “either a grave systemic shortcoming in the investigative
mechanisms put in place or a complete lack of political will to hold
officials accountable.” PRISON AND DETENTION
CENTER CONDITIONS Prisons were
overcrowded in some cases and lacked adequate sanitary conditions and medical
care, but they generally met most international standards. ARREST PROCEDURES
AND TREATMENT OF DETAINEES Pretrial Detention:
The MCS reported 258 pretrial or remand detainees were held in their
facilities as of September, with some held for several years without a
conviction. Concluding
observations on the seventh periodic report of Maldives Committee against
Torture, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner of Human Rights
OHCHR, 27 November 2018 tbinternet.ohchr.org/Treaties/CAT/Shared%20Documents/MDV/CAT_C_MDV_CO_1_33165_E.pdf [accessed 8 December
2018] IMPUNITY FOR TORTURE -- The Committee appreciates the
commitment expressed by
the new Government
to eliminate the gap between the State party’s legislation prohibiting
torture and its application in practice. The Committee reiterates its concern
that there has so far been only one proven case of torture or ill - treatment
by an officer of the Maldives Police Service, which did not result in the
perpetrator’s imprisonment, and that out of the 275 cases of alleged torture
reported to the Human Rights Commission of the Maldives since the enactment
of the Anti-Torture
Act, only 14 cases are
presently under investigation.
It is seriously concerned that the
low number of
complaints and cases
investigated is due
in part to the
reluctance to cooperate of the
authorities, in particular the police, with the Human Rights Commission of
the Maldives and with the National Integrity Commission. (arts. 1, 2, 4 and
16). Committee
Against Torture Reviews The Initial Report of Maldives United Nations
Office at Geneva UNOG, 28 November 2018 [accessed 1 December
2018] QUESTIONS BY COUNTRY
CO-RAPPORTEURS
-- The Committee’s most serious concern in Maldives was impunity for
torture. Since the Anti-Torture Law
had come into force, there had been 223 torture allegations, mostly against
police officers and prison correction officers, but there had been no
convictions. What measures would be
taken to address this accountability gap between the investigations by the
Human Rights Commission and the State prosecution? Torture victims
require redress, thwarted by institutionalised
impunity Leah Malone, Minivan
News, 14 July 2013 minivannews.com/politics/torture-victims-require-redress-thwarted-by-institutionalised-impunity-61068 [accessed 15
Aug 2013] [accessed 28 August
2016] “It is quite
worrying that we keep hearing about accounts of torture in custody. These
recent accounts are an indication of the consistence and continuing abuse in
custody,” Maldivian Democracy Network (MDN)’s Executive Director Humaida ‘Humey’ Abdulghafoor told Minivan News yesterday (July 13). “There is systemic
and systematic abuse of detainees [in the Maldives], therefore the practice
of torture is unlikely to just disappear over a short period of time,” she emphasised. “Many families and
victims are afraid and not willing to talk or report these violations because
they feel intimidated [by the state] given the risks of revictimization
and possible harassment,” she continued. Torture and
ill-treatment of detainees was often inflicted outside the prison buildings,
and guards appear to have been given free range to use whatever methods they
choose, including: beatings, burning, being tied to palm trees, the use of
high-pressure hoses, the use of stocks and other painful restraints as well
as suspension, near drowning, being restrained and covered in sugar water to
attract ants, subjection to noise and sleep deprivation, sexual abuse and
sexual humiliation, etc., the report found. Freedom House
Country Report - Political Rights: 4 Civil Liberties: 4 Status: Partly Free 2009 Edition www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2009/maldives [accessed 5 February
2013] LONG
URL ç 2009 Country Reports begin on Page 21 [accessed 13 May
2020] Prison conditions
remain abysmal. Following the first independent inspection, local NGOs
reported in November 2008 that inmates were regularly tortured or beaten and
that women were sexually abused by guards in the country’s largest jail. The Nasheed administration initiated efforts to reform and
retrain police forces. While the Gayoom government
was known to detain political prisoners, the new constitution bans arbitrary
arrest, torture, and prolonged detention without adequate judicial review. It
also requires compensation for those detained without legal justification. AMNESTY
INTERNATIONAL From an old article -- URL not available Article was
published sometime prior to 2015 TORTURE AND OTHER ILL-TREATMENT Detainees were
tortured upon arrest and on their way to police centres.
Beatings, pepper-spraying the eyes and mouth, denial of drinking water and,
in Addu, incarceration in dog cages, were all
common methods used. EXCESSIVE USE OF
FORCE Throughout the
year, security forces frequently attacked peaceful demonstrators, including
MPs, journalists and bystanders, in the capital Malé
or in Addu, both MDP strongholds. Officers clubbed
them, kicked them and pepper-sprayed them directly in the eyes. Around the
time of Mohamed Nasheed’s resignation, from 7 to 9
February, police targeted senior MDP members for attack and tracked down and
assaulted injured protesters in hospitals. On 7 February,
security forces attacked MP Ahmed Esa, beating him
particularly on the head with metal rods and batons. On 29 May, Mana
Haleem, whose husband was a former minister in Mohamed Nasheed’s
cabinet, was on her way home when police stopped her. She had been walking
through Majeedee Magu
Street where an opposition rally was taking place. Police repeatedly beat her
with truncheons on the arms, back and hips before taking her into custody. LACK OF
ACCOUNTABILITY Serious failings in
the justice system entrenched impunity. These included the absence of
codified laws capable of providing justice equally to all and the appointment
of judges who lacked formal training in law without serious scrutiny of their
legal qualifications. Throughout the year, authorities were accused of
political bias for fast-tracking the prosecution of opposition supporters
accused of criminal behaviour during rallies while
failing to prosecute police and others suspected of committing human rights
abuses during the same protests. ***
EARLIER EDITIONS OF SOME OF THE ABOVE *** Human Rights
Reports » 2008 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2008/sca/119137.htm [accessed 5 February
2013] 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2008/sca/119137.htm [accessed 7 July
2019] TORTURE
AND OTHER CRUEL, INHUMAN, OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT – The law
prohibited such practices, although there were reports of mistreatment of
persons by security forces. In April the
Maldivian Detainee Network (MDN) reported that police beat six prisoners in Dhoonidhoo detention center after their arrest during a
crackdown on gang violence. A subsequent hunger strike by inmates reportedly
led to further police abuse. In May the mother
of one of the Dhoonidhoo detainees filed a
complaint with the HRCM alleging her son was beaten while in custody. The
detainee, Ahmed Simhan, had turned himself into
police in Male in February in connection with an investigation into
gang-related violence that had resulted in the death of a gang member All
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ARTICLES. Cite this
webpage as: Patt, Prof. Martin, "Torture by Police, Forced Disappearance
& Other Ill Treatment in the early years of the 21st Century-
Maldives", http://gvnet.com/torture/Maldives.htm, [accessed
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