RaajjeTV files case challenging MBC's decision to penalize press over interviews of convicts

RaajjeTV has filed a case against the Maldives Broadcasting Commission (MBC) at the Civil Court, challenging its decision to penalize media organizations that broadcast interviews of convicts.

Speaking to RaajjeMV after filing the case at the court, the station’s lawyer Mariyam Muna said that the reason for challenging MBC’s circular is because ‘it lacks merit’, as well as to prove that it was issued ‘restrict and threaten press freedom’.

She further informed that the Civil Court had accepted the case, and that she ‘expects the Court to reach a decision on the matter soon’.

Also speaking after, RaajjeTV’s chief operating officer Hussain Fiyaz Moosa described MBC’s latest circular as ‘the worst attack on media in recent history’. He said that despite it lacking merit, that the Commission’s warning has led to further restrictions on media.

Fiyaz added that he hopes that the Civil Court analyzes the matter carefully, and decide in favor of RaajjeTV and the media.

In a statement issued on Wednesday, RaajjeTV called it a deliberate move to infringe on the freedom to acquire and distribute information and on the freedom of the press, and emphasized that it is aimed at reaping benefits for certain individuals in powerful positions.

Officers of the Maldives Police Service, in plainclothes, arrived at the station’s main office in the capital Malé City, to issue a verbal warning against broadcasting interviews and statements of convicts.