Maldives declares state of emergency ahead of rally

Yahoo – AFP, Mohamed Visham, 4 Nov 2015

Maldives police patrol the streets of the capital Male on October 24,

2015 (AFP Photo/Haveeru)

Maldives President Abdulla Yameen Wednesday invoked draconian emergency laws for the first time in 11 years, heightening a crackdown on dissent after alleged attempts on his life.

Foreign Minister Dunya Maumoon said the declaration of a state of emergency meant that a rally planned by the main opposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) for Friday was unlikely to be allowed.

"Obviously there is every likelihood that it might not go ahead given the situation," Maumoon told AFP by telephone. "Because of the security (in the congested capital island Male)."

The Maldives is a tropical nation made 

up of 26 coral atolls (AFP Photo)

There was no immediate word from the MDP on whether the party would defy the emergency.

However, Maumoon, who is the niece of Yameen and the daughter of former president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, said the emergency, which gives security forces and police sweeping powers to arrest suspects, was a "precautionary action."

It was necessary because of threats to the president's life, she said, denying that the move was to suppress Friday's planned protest by the opposition.

"President Yameen has declared state of emergency to ensure the safety and security of every citizen," his spokesman Muaz Ali tweeted.

The last time the Maldives imposed a state of emergency was in August 2004 under president Gayoom, the half brother of Yameen, to crack down on pro-democracy protests by the MDP.

Official sources said the latest declaration, initially for a period of 30 days, would lead to the automatic suspension of several constitutional provisions including the right of association and the right of assembly.

Tensions are high in the honeymoon island nation following an explosion aboard the president's speedboat on September 28 and this week's alleged discovery of a remote-controlled bomb near his official residence.

Yameen was unharmed in the boat explosion, although his wife and two others were slightly injured, and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation has said there was no evidence it was caused by a bomb.

But authorities in the Maldives have called it an attempt on his life. On October 24 Yameen arrested his deputy Ahmed Adeeb, accusing him of "high treason" and linking him to the blast.

Maldives President Abdulla Yameen declared

a state of emergency to to "ensure the 

safety and security of every citizen", his

spokesman said (AFP Photo)

The state of emergency order fast-tracked the impeachment of Adeeb, who could be sacked within days.

Several ministers, a police chief and key security personnel have also been sacked following the explosion.

The MDP said the emergency order was aimed at cracking down on anti-government activists.

"The discovery of a 'bomb' (on Monday) was the lead up to today's emergency," MDP spokesman Hamid Abdul Ghafoor told AFP.

"Yameen has jailed or threatened every opposition leader, placed criminal charges against 1,700 opposition activists, and is now turning on his own by jailing the vice president.

"For the good of the nation, it is time for Yameen to resign."

Travel warning

Yameen faces international censure over his jailing of MDP leader Mohamed Nasheed, the country's first democratically elected leader who was forced to step down in February 2012 following a police mutiny.

Colombo-based Western diplomats, who are also accredited to the Maldives, had decided to tell their nationals to exercise caution when visiting the capital island Male, a diplomatic source in Colombo said.

Australia had already asked its citizens to exercise "a high degree" of caution when travelling to Male, warning of the possibility of terror attacks.

Every year more than one million tourists visit the Maldives, a nation of 1,192 small 

coral islands dotted around the equator (AFP Photo/Lakruwan Wanniarachchi)

Dunya said the government assured the safety of tourists, a key source of revenue for the Indian Ocean atoll nation.

Despite the political unrest, tourism -- the archipelago's mainstay -- is booming with more than one million visitors a year.

Holidaymakers who pay top dollar to relax on one of the atolls are usually whisked away by seaplane or boat, bypassing the restive capital Male where extra police have been deployed in recent months.

US Secretary of State John Kerry spoke in May of "troubling signs" for democracy in the Maldives, while Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi this year shelved plans to visit the islands, a move seen as a rebuke to Yameen.

Maldives declares state of emergency https://t.co/mamFQ9igM2 pic.twitter.com/2gnPnLiTBh

— Agence France-Presse (@AFP) November 4, 2015

Leave the Kids, Take the Bikini

Discovering a luxury holiday utopia nestled on the crystal clear waters of the Indian Ocean

Jakarta Globe, Christabelle Palar,Feb 24, 2015

Club Med Finolhu offers couples and weary city travelers a luxurious holiday
gateway on the azure blue waters of the stunning Maldives islands. (Photo
courtesy of Club Med Finolhu)

It was every shade of blue glimmering under the golden sun. As far as the eye can see, waters so crystal clear one can easily spot baby sharks swimming around among schools of fish.

On a table in the corner was breakfast — a Japanese breakfast menu consisting of freshly baked salmon, rice, soy sauce, seaweed and a bowl of miso soup, with a fruit platter and a bread basket on the side — delivered by a butler whose phone call had woken me up that morning to tell me he had set up my morning meal on the patio while I was asleep. He hoped I didn’t mind.

I set a portable speaker — provided by the hotel — on the table and connected it with my music player so that the tunes of my choice became the soundtrack to the exquisite morning view before me.

Such was the typical morning for guests at Club Med Finolhu, the French resort chain’s newest and first adult-only resort, located in the Maldives.

Known back in the ’80s for its wild, non-stop partying and youthful flare, Club Med today has taken on an almost completely different form, with most of its resort, including those in Indonesia’s islands of Bali and Bintan, catering more and more to families and businesses.

But the establishment of Club Med Finolhu, the resort’s second chain in the Maldives, marks its foray into even newer territories.

Its first Maldives resort, Club Med Kani, located a short five-minute boat ride away from Finolhu, boasts 260 rooms and villas in total, and still has a touch of the Club Med holiday-goers are more acquainted with. Various forms of entertainment — ranging from comedy performances to musicals — is a nightly affair, and both guests and Club Med staff blend together in the parties that typically follow these shows.

The Sunrise Lagoon Villa, with direct access to the shallow waters.
(Photo courtesy of Club Med Finolhu)

At Finolhu, however, the number of rooms is cut down quite significantly. Home to only 52 villas, guests, most of whom are couples on their honeymoon or those taking a break from their daily grind, are guaranteed premium, uninterrupted tranquility and privacy. Every villa is assigned its own butler, who would readily cater to room service requests.

A pathway divides the island into two. One part, which hosts the Sunrise Lagoon Villas and the Sunrise Beach Villas, looks out to where the sun rises every morning — a treat for the early risers.

The other, upon which the Sunset Lagoon Villas and Sunset Beach Villas are located, is where guests can enjoy the crimson Maldivian sunset.

Each villa boasts a spacious bedroom, living room, and shower room, and a private pool with a view of the sea. For guests occupying a lagoon villa, a staircase next to the pool leads right into the shallow water, calling for a dip.

In the resort’s main area, absent is the sound of upbeat, dance music blaring from the speakers I remember from a visit to Club Med Bali last year. All around at the main pool that overlooks the pristine blue waters and a beach, guests are free to sunbathe and relax to soothing, down-tempo music playing. A bar is located just right next to the pool, so that guests are able to maximize on the all-inclusive policy — drinks, food, and activities are covered for in the nightly rate — which Club Med pioneered.

View from the shower room of the resort’s Sunset Lagoon Villa.
(Photo courtesy of Club Med Finolhu)

Going green

The resort’s adult-exclusive policy is not the only thing that sets it apart from its predecessors. Upon reaching the island and walking on the jetty, guests would easily notice solar panels neatly attached on the roof.

“All of the electricity in Finolhu is solar-powered,” Club Med’s country manager for Indonesia Bruno Courbet explains. “There is a lot of sun, although on days when it’s raining and there isn’t enough power, we have a generator to use as backup.”

While popular as a holiday destination, especially among honeymooners, the mention of Maldives over the past few years have not only included tales of its natural beauty, but also its potential to be one of the countries in the world most geographically prone to be affected by climate change and rising water levels.

In December 2004, the Maldives was also one of the countries that had to bear the brunt of the Indian Ocean tsunami, which in the Indonesian province of Aceh saw hundreds of thousands of people killed and missing.

“It was not as bad as Aceh, we did not have a big wave wash over the islands, but the tide was very, very low, my sailing instructor recalled one afternoon as we were slowly leaving the shore on our small sailing boat for four.

“All of these areas were dry, you could see lots of fish jumping around because there was no water,” he says pointing at the waters around us. “After a while, water suddenly kept rising and rising and before you know it our lands were flooded.”

Club Med Kani, built in 2000, was among the holiday destinations affected by this natural disaster.

“All the over-water bungalows were damaged. We closed the village for a few months and rebuilt them,” Bruno says. “We reinforced their structures with concrete [as part of our] prevention [efforts].”

No guests and staffs of the resort were hurt, although electricity was cut off for a while, Bruno explained, adding that sufficient food and water was provided and everyone was evacuated within on week.

A bird's-eye view of the resort. (Photo courtesy of Club Med Finolhu)

With the establishment of Finolhu and its strict use of solar power, Club Med aims to contribute to the environment and the nature that surrounds and sustains both of its Maldives resorts.

“The use of solar-powered electricity is one example of how we can pursue this [as part of our] corporate social responsibility’s direction, particularly so in the Maldives, given its strategic importance in resort destinations,” Bruno adds.

“We hope it will set the benchmark on further development in the Maldives as this country has to be the pioneer of sustainability.”

A snorkeling excursion to several nearby reefs with guests from the resort made it clear just how valuable the surrounding ecosystem was, not only to Club Med, but to the Maldives and its busy tourism industry.

In these deeper waters, colorful fishes I’ve never seen during previous snorkeling trips, swim about in large numbers and feed from the seemingly endless corals. If lucky, one would meet sea turtles, seahorses, and even manta rays. An attempt to count all the different types of fish with my fingers failed, not because my goggles were fogging up, but because one would simply lose track.

Maldives and all of its beauty, above and underwater, proves itself a gem.

Related Article:

Maldives faces challenges as Chinese tourists slow

Body washes up on Beckham's hideaway island in Maldives

Google – AFP, 30 December 2013

A file picture dated on November 12, 2007 shows a luxury island resort

in the Maldives (AFP, Sanka Vidanagama)

Malé — A dead body has washed up at an exclusive island resort in the Maldives where English football star David Beckham is taking a hideaway Christmas holiday with his family, police said Monday.

Investigations were underway to establish the cause of death of the man, whose body was found floating near a jetty on Sunday at the One and Only Reethi Rah resort near the capital island Male, police said.

"The body was removed to a morgue and investigations are underway," police spokesman Hassan Haneef told AFP by telephone.

Maldives police stand guard during a

 protest in Male, on October 19, 2013 

(AFP, Ishara S.Kodikara)

In a second incident, a stock of fireworks brought in for New Year's Eve exploded on the island Sunday, shattering the calm for guests who pay up to $12,700 a night for a room.

Police said the dead man, identified as a Sri Lankan national, was not a guest or an employee of the upmarket resort where Chelsea football club owner Roman Abramovich was also reportedly staying.

Beckham, his wife Victoria and their four children remained at the de luxe resort despite the problems on Sunday, tourism sources said.

The couple visited the Maldives a year ago and stayed at the same resort, but that holiday was dampened by incessant rain.

Tourism Minister Ahmed Adeeb told reporters last week that several international celebrities were spending their Christmas holidays in the nation of more than 1,000 coral-fringed islands scattered across the equator.

The Maldives is known for its secluded resorts with pristine beaches and privacy and is also a popular destination for well-heeled honeymooners. It attracted nearly a million foreign holidaymakers last year.

Tourism has suffered setbacks in recent years due to political unrest following the resignation of former president Mohamed Nasheed in February 2012 in what he later alleged was a coup.

Culture War as the Maldives Opens Up to Backpackers

Jakarta Globe - AFP, Adam Plowright on 5:25 pm October 13, 2013

This photograph taken on September 9, 2013 shows an aerial view of one of the
 many luxurious resorts that dot the many islands that comprise the Maldives in the
Indian Ocean. (AFP Photo/ Roberto Schmidt)

Male. The Maldives is one of the world’s most exclusive holiday destinations but it has quietly opened up to backpackers in the last five years with a reform that has upset religious hard-liners.

Most visitors arrive at the country’s airport island, take a speed boat or seaplane to their expensive coral-fringed private resort and spend the next week relaxing in blissful ignorance of the country around them.

It has been this way for decades, the result of a deliberate policy of keeping the wealthy holidaymakers — mostly Westerners and often newly-weds — on uninhabited islands separate from the local Muslim population.

The Islamic Republic applies different laws for both: travelers are free to drink alcohol, eat pork, and for those not on their honeymoon, enjoy pre-marital sex. Elsewhere, Maldivian women can be flogged in public for fornication.

“Since Maldives is a Muslim country, we have always supported the idea that the tourism industry should be separate from the inhabited islands,” says Mauroof Hussain, vice president of the conservative Adhaalath Party.

“If the hippy-type of travelers come, along will come drugs and narcotics which even now our society is suffering from,” says Hussain, whose party has been a minority partner in successive governments since 2008.

While the archipelago is still far from the hippy trail, the sight of backpackers wandering around Male and the nearby island of Maafushi is growing thanks to a new policy to attract budget travellers.

“Things like nudity are not acceptable in a place where people are living,” adds Mauroof. “The people complain that they are praying in the mosque and just outside there are tourists in bikinis.”

Men enjoy a nightly game of chess outside a corner restaurant in Male on
September 6, 2013. (AFP Photo/ Roberto Schmidt)

‘Very welcoming people’

Since a reform under the country’s first democratically-elected president Mohamed Nasheed in 2009, Maldivians have been allowed to open their own guesthouses on populated islands.

While fundamentalist interpretations of Islam imported from the Gulf and Pakistan are progressively taking root in the Maldives, Mauroof’s views lie far outside the mainstream and are ridiculed by many.

What started as a trickle of guesthouses has become a torrent with entrepreneurs like 25-year-old Ibrahim Mohamed converting properties and profiting from what is the islands’ biggest business and foreign exchange earner.

“Maldivians are very welcoming people. It wasn’t Maldivians that wanted separation, it was the government and a few businessmen saying that they should be isolated,” Mohamed told AFP. “The Maldives can’t hide from the world anymore.”

His three-roomed Sundhara Palace located on a busy street of the cramped capital Male opened at the beginning of September, offering basic en-suite accommodation for $30 a night.

The cheapest resorts are usually about 10 times this, with prices stretching up to several thousand dollars a night — with expensively priced food and drink on top.

Mohamed stresses that the guesthouse policy is also “a good system to get money to the people instead of to wealthy businessmen.”

A handful of well-connected resort owners who prospered under the 30-year autocratic rule of strongman Maumoon Abdul Gayoom continue to control the Maldives economy and are active in politics.

These oligarchs have united against Nasheed, who was ousted in February 2012 following a mutiny by security forces, which he branded a “coup.”

His efforts to return to power through the ballot box have since been thwarted with the country wracked by protests and uncertainty after the Supreme Court annulled elections he won on September 7.

The court order came in response to a legal challenge from the third-placed candidate Gasim Ibrahim, one of the country’s wealthiest tycoons who is in alliance with the Adhaalath Party.

A re-run of the polls has been ordered for October 19, with the British government warning travellers to avoid demonstrations and take precautions in the capital.

If re-elected, Nasheed has promised in to expand the guesthouse policy as part of his ambitious social and economic reform program.

“The industry is flourishing very rapidly. We feel there is so much more scope for that,” he told reporters days before voting in the first round of the election in September.

One of the people to take advantage of the changes is Dutch tourist Chris Constandse, a 27-year-old web designer who works for a travel website in Amsterdam.

He booked a few nights at a hotel in the capital, but plans to spend the rest of his two-week holiday staying in guesthouses dotted around the country of more than 1,000 islands.

“Backpackers go to India, Sri Lanka, Thailand and I was like ‘I always do things different,’ so I thought I’d go backpacking in the Maldives,” he told AFP shortly before leaving on a ferry for one of the nearby islands.

“The most important thing is that you get in touch with the people. I’ve stayed in Male for three nights and I’ve already met some people and made some friends.”

Agence France-Presse

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Maldives election chaos fuels 'banana republic' fears

India tourist visits down 25% following fatal Delhi gang rape

Tourism industry survey contradicts rosy government picture, showing tourists are shunning India over sexual assault fears

The Guardian, Maseeh Rahman in Delhi, Sunday 31 March 2013

The number of female tourists visiting India was down 35% in the first three
 months of 2013, according to Associated Chambers of Commerce & Industry of
India. Photograph: Manpreet Romana/AFP/Getty Images

The number of foreign tourists arriving in India dropped by 25% during the first three months of this year, largely because of fears about the risk of sexual assault, according to an industry survey.

The number of female tourists fell by 35% compared with the same period last year, with Indian tour operators reporting many cancellations from January to March following the fatal gang rape of a physiotherapist on a Delhi bus last December.

The figures from the Associated Chambers of Commerce & Industry of India (Assocham) are based on a survey of 1,200 tour operators and contradict the government's rosy picture of the tourism business.

For both January and February, tourism ministry figures showed an increase in the number of tourists and revenue from tourism, compared with the first two months of 2012. A month after the Delhi gang rape, the tourism secretary, Parvez Dewan, said: "So far there has been no adverse impact on tourism."

Since then, however, at least six foreign women have complained to police about being attacked or traumatised by men, mostly at tourist destinations, leading several countries, including the UK, to issue travels advisories for India.

Delhi police figures show a dramatic rise in reported crime since 1 January, with molestation cases up by 590.4% over the same period last year and rape cases up by 147.6%. The front pages of Sunday's newspapers carried a story about the gang rape of an 18-year-old male Delhi University student who had gone out to meet a Facebook friend.

Assocham's secretary-general, DS Rawat, said that while the government was banking on tourist dollars to help reduce the country's yawning current account deficit, the security situation was making foreign tourists bypass India for other Asian destinations such as Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam.

Despite the global economic slowdown, India earned $17.7bn (£11.6bn) from 6.6 million foreign visitors in 2012. Delhi aims to increase annual tourist numbers by 12% and double foreign exchange earnings from tourism by 2016.

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Petition against Maldives rape victim flogging