Police probing opposition supporter's call to "set president on fire"

Maldives Police Service (MPS) has begun investigating the case of an opposition supporter having called to set President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih on fire, during a live telecast.

Police revealed that the matter has been brought to the attention of the institution and assured that the matter will be probed thoroughly.

Further, the Maldives Broadcasting Commission has also assured that they will look into the matter.

The supporter of opposition coalition comprising of Progressive Party of the Maldives (PPM) and People’s National Congress (PNC) publicly called to set the president on fire during a programme broadcast on Channel 13.

Since then, Channel 13 has apologized from the general public, having revealed that the participant of its “Rayyithunge Adu” programme telecast at 1pm Thursday, had spoken on his belief and that they had disconnected the live phone call immediately after he made the remarks.

The channel added that they “do not encourage violence and hatred among the society” and that the station will not by any means allow opportunity for anyone to go against the country’s laws.

The opposition support’s threatening remark comes at a time the channel has been warned by the Maldives Broadcasting Commission a number of times.

Broadcom’s Code of Practice clearly states that human dignity and privacy must be respected and that “content which include defamatory language or audio/visual material which aims to vilify a person or a group of people must not be broadcast” and that “content must neither condone nor present a positive portrayal of criminal offenses such as; murder, violence, theft, illicit gang activities, psychological abuse, domestic violence, terrorism, bloodshed, weapons based crimes, mugging, vandalism and fraud.”

Broadcom had earlier met a number of senior officials from the channel and pushed the management to ensure adequate content that is in accordance with the commission’s rules and code of practice are broadcast.

During the administration of incarcerated ex-president Abdulla Yameen, several actions had been taken against privately-run television station RaajjeTV by Broadcom including multiple fines amounting to MVR 3.7 million under the Anti-Defamation and Freedom of Speech Act introduced in 2016. Several members of his government, as well as then president of Broadcom had later said that the purpose of this law was to target RaajjeTV.