Maldives Democracy Network (MDN) has condemned Maldives Broadcasting Commission (MBC)’s harassment of RaajjeTV and its journalists.
In a statement issued on Wednesday, MDN condemned MBC’s actions ‘in their attempts to obstruct the right to free expression and free media of Raajje Television and their journalists’ adding that ‘attempts to withhold the right to free media obstructs the constitutional right of the people to engage in debate regarding the effectiveness of policies and the integrity of public officials’.
“The news brought by Raajje TV is, as do other media outlets, important coverage of events, political activities and other news and reports that should be brought to the people as a matter of public interest,” reads the statement.
It further noted that ‘ordering the media station to make apologies and place exorbitant fines on them for telecasting these programs is a form of harassment on Raajje TV’, emphasizing that the MVR one million fine issued on RaajjeTV, hours after it paid the MVR 250,000 issued previously ‘is a direct obstruction of free media’.
Calling on MBC ‘to abide by the Constitution and international obligations of the Maldives’, the statement reminded it that ‘these obligations declare as fundamental rights the right to freedom of expression, free media and equality’.
MDN further reminded MBC that ‘it is the duty of all state institutions and people to protect fundamental rights and respect the principles of democracy in order to enable the just rule of law’.
RaajjeTV was fined MVR one million on April 6, for having aired live speech at an opposition rally that MBC ‘believes’ to be defamatory towards President Abdulla Yameen under the Anti-Defamation and Freedom of Expression Act, after an inquiry conducted on its own initiative. The content in question was part of a speech by an opposition politician at a rally held by the Maldives United Opposition (MUO) on October 26, 2016.
The content in question, which MBC concluded as defamatory are;
“Take a look at any of the project started out by Abdulla Yameen. Few projects such as a pigeon park was completed”, “there are no airports, flats, airports of any other projects created by him’, “over the space of three years, how many billion Rufiyaa was handed over by the state coffers to him, nothing done”, and “we had received nothing but theft, corruption and pain”.
