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Date Posted: 15:25:27 02/07/04 Sat
Author: Vincent Brossel
Subject: RSF calls for early release of Maldives cyberdissidents

6 February 2004

MALDIVES

Reporters Without Borders calls for early release of cyberdissidents
as they begin their third year in prison

Their colleague Fatimath Nisreen has had her sentence halved


Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontières) has called for the early release of three organisers of an on-line newsletter, two of whom were jailed for life in July 2002 for "defamation" and "attempting to overthrow the government".

The call by the international press freedom organisation came after Maldives President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom promised a reform of the prison system.

Mohamed Zaki and Ahmad Didi, directors of the electronic newsletter Sandhaanu, were arrested on 30 January 2002 along with Ibrahim
Luthfee, who subsequently escaped, and Fatimath Nisreen.

The Divehi-language electronic newsletter carried articles denouncing
corruption and abuse of power on the part of the president.

Calling for the early release of the three, Reporters Without Borders
said their only crime was to have exercised their right to
self-expression. The organisation pointed out that Article 25 of the
Maldives Constitution guaranteed every citizen "the right to express
his conscience and thoughts orally or in writing or by other means".

Reporters Without Borders has managed to confirm that Fatimath
Nisreen, who was assistant to Ibrahim Luthfee, had her sentence
halved to five years on 13 November 2003.

She had been sentenced to ten years in jail for "insulting the
President" and "attempting to overthrow the government (…) by
founding a newsletter named Sandhaanu." The Department of
Penitentiary and Rehabilitation Services, which comes under the
interior ministry, also decided to banish her to Feeail island south
of the capital Malé. She spent more than a year in prison on Mafushi
island in harsh conditions.

Reporters Without Borders has also learned that Zaki and Didi were
punished in June 2003 after their colleague Luthfee escaped. They
were transferred to prison on Dhoonidhoo island and spent six months
in solitary confinement, during which time they suffered harassment
and ill- treatment.

Following riots in September 2003 after the beating to death of a
common-law prisoner at the central jail in Malé, the authorities
decided to send them back to Maafushi island. They are both held in
harsh conditions, in unventilated cells and are only allowed to
receive visits from their families once a month and limited to one
hour.

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