Maldives
The Indian Ocean archipelago of the Maldives has been ranked 100 out of 180 countries in the 2023 World Press Freedom Index (WPFI). The French non-governmental organization (NGO), Reporters Without Borders (RSF), annually holds WPFI to assess the level of freedom journalists and media outlets have in 180 countries and territories around the world.
The ranking is based on an evaluation of five categories: political situation, laws in terms of journalism freedom, economic factors, culture and religion, and the safety of media representatives.
The relatively diverse print media, in which 25 out of 100 press institutions write in English, is dominated by the Dhivehi language, says RSF. The most influential broadcasters are Television Maldives (TVM) and Dhivehi Raajjeyge Adu (“The Voice of the Maldives”), which used to disseminate propaganda during the authoritarian regime. The emergence of more and more independent writing and broadcasting media outlets like Raajje TV and Maldives Independent, which also claims RSF, has hindered the monopoly of TVM and “The Voice of the Maldives.”
Since 2022, the famous tourist destination has dropped 13 places in the ranking for WPFI due to sociocultural issues. In July 2023, the U.S. Department of the Treasury announced the designation of leaders and financial facilitators of the terrorist-affiliated criminal gangs of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and al-Qa’ida Cells, a Sunni pan-Islamist militant organization, in July 2023.
The U.S. Department of State confirmed that these groups are responsible for carrying out attacks against journalists and local authorities.
Representative of the Islamist political party, Mohamed Muizzu, became the new president of the Maldives, on September 30, 2023, according to The New York Times.
Indian influence has occupied the territory of the Maldives since authoritarian rule, but it is no more. Muizzu has pushed for a stronger relationship with China, which won him 54.04% of the votes.
Despite the new governance, old ways of media oppression are still taking place in the country. RSF highlighted a vital law that proclaims freedom of the press, namely Article 28 of the Constitution of the Maldives, saying, “No person shall be compelled to disclose the source of any information that is espoused, disseminated, or published by that person.”
Opposing this legislative protective shield is the Evidence Act, which entered into force in January 2023 and states that the judicial system is allowed to compel media actors to reveal their sources of information.
But the endangerment of media actors’ safety is not a recent thing.
Reporters Without Borders outlined the abduction of journalist Ahmed Rilwan Abdulla in 2014 and the murder of blogger Yameen Rasheed in 2017 to give a clear vision of the suppression of the media in this period. Their deaths have a link to each other because Rasheed was investigating Abdulla’s kidnapping in the post-authoritarian archipelago.
Former president Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom had a significantly negative impact on the Maldives freedom of speech and journalism transparency. He ruled with an “iron fist”, as described by RSF, from 2013 to 2018, the exact period of the journalists’ murders.
Yameen is half-brother to the former dictator Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, who held power for 30 years. Shortly after Yameen was elected as the new democratic president in 2013, he undermined the integrity of the judicial system so as to serve the executive power interests, reported Al Jazeera.
The documentary Stealing Paradise by Al Jazeera Investigates exposed Yameen’s outrageous acts of impunity, like burning media outlets to the ground, corruption, and embezzlement of funds.
For his crimes, he was sentenced to 11 years in jail in 2019, according to Reuters.
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Teodora Ruseva is a student at the American university in Bulgaria who majors in Journalism and Mass Communication and Business Administration. She is interested in international politics and expresses this passion in her piece, as well as in her research about Maldives.
