Broadcasting Commission members are incapable: MP Imthiyaz Fahmy

MP Imthiyaz Fahmy, the deputy leader of the Maldivian Democratic Party’s parliamentary group, has said that the Maldives Broadcasting Commission (MBC) – the state institution charged with regulating content aired by local broadcasters.

At a joint opposition rally on Monday night, MP Fahmy heavily criticized MBC for recent investigations on ‘unjust’ grounds and for its ‘baseless but harsh penalties’ against journalists and media organizations.

In his speech, Fahmy quipped that the current composition of the commission were all rubber-stamps for ‘the sovereign’ – as he referred to the President Abdulla Yameen’s administration.

“I am someone who sits at the parliament’s committee on independent institutions and visit these commission offices. I can say that they do not have people that can be described as responsible members of a regulatory body. We essentially walked in on them knitting flag-cloth for the sovereign's faction. Naturally what we are now seeing is the consequences of the sovereign’s flagmen being placed at these institutions” Fahmy said in his speech.

Further, he had then criticized investigatory institutions for their failure to produce anyone culpable for the arson attack on Raajje Television’s primary control room and studio in October, 2013. Additionally, he raised concern over the Prosectutor General’s decision earlier this week to appeal the station's journalist Wisam Mohamed’s acquittal on obstruction charges while covering a bomb scare in capital city Malé.

“Wisam’s acquittal from the criminal court has also now been appealed, does the state other cases more constructive to its stakes than this?” he continued.

MP Fahmy had also voiced regret over the state’s ‘complete failure’ to find and prosecute those responsible for Maldives Indepdent’s journalist Ahmed Rilwan’s dissapearance.