Representative of South-Galolhu constituency in Parliament, Ahmed Mahloof has stressed on the importance of Parliament approving to reimburse the hefty amounts of money media has been fined over the past two years, as parliament prepares to repeal the draconian Anti-defamation and freedom of expression law passed in 2016,

The MP has made this assertion while it has been announced that the Parliament will be considering a motion submitted by North-Henveiru MP Abdulla Shahid to repeal the Anti-Defamation Act at Sunday’s Parliament sitting.

Mahloof stressed that if the Parliament were to pass the motion to repeal the Anti-Defamation Act, it poses of significance that reimbursement of the fines which were imposed on media outlets under the bill, are passed as well.

While the first station to be fined under the draconian Anti-Defamation law was RaajjeTV, the station remains the only media outlet to be fined the most times. As such, the station was fined a total of four times with the amount totaling MVR 3.7 million since 2017 which has since been paid up with the generous contributions from the citizens and well-wishers.

Alongside RaajjeTV, VTV, SanguTV as well as state broadcaster Public Service Media (PSM) was also fined. Moreover, a former journalist at RaajjeTV was also fined. It is also notable that the amount of money fined, was not given to the person who was defamed, rather it was handed over to the Maldives Inland Revenue Authority (MIRA) after deeming it as state funds.