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The
Maldivian society considers certain crimes more shameful than
others. Among these are homosexuality, fraud and petty
theft. If a man were arrested for homosexuality, he
would tell his friends he was found with a girl.
The latest trend in Male has been conmen and petty thieves
claiming to be political prisoners.
It
is really amazing to see how far some people are willing to go
to keep up the pretence. Some have even approached
organizations like Amnesty International. But such
organizations now don’t even bother to investigate these
fantastic claims. Through long experience they have
learnt that the Maldives is one of the few countries in the
third world where there are no prisoners of conscience.
They have also learnt that we have one of the most humane
prison systems in the world.
It
may surprise many of us that a few Maldivians would like to
see foreign interference in the Maldives. Actually
there have been a few such people even in history. Take the example of the two sons of Hassan Tajuddin.
More recently there have been Luthfi and Sagar Nasir.
And now we have a small group of disgruntled people who would
like to get the US and UK involved in our affairs. But
these countries know very well that the Maldives has always
been a moderate Islamic country.
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President Gayoom had adopted a policy of moderate
Islam for the Maldives long before the US realized the dangers
of extremism
It
is only after September 11th that the US and UK
have started talking about extremism. Many years
before that President Gayoom has adopted a policy of moderate
Islam for the Maldives.
He has raised this issue at important international
forums including the historic conference at Fez, Morocco. All Maldivians bear
witness to this and most of us admire him for this visionary
policy. Had all
Muslim leaders adopted such a policy, the Muslim world would
not be in the position it is today.
All
of us know that, along with the rest of the world, the
Maldives is also going through a difficult period. But instead of helping
to improve the situation, some people are bent on rubbing salt
on the wounds. Like
vultures they see this as an opportunity for their evil
designs.
In
this process, they are only deceiving themselves. They can fool themselves into believing that any loud
voice heard in an island is a rebellion. But they can’t
change the facts. The
fact is that the Maldives is the most peaceful nation on earth
and Maldivians have faith in their government.
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