Corruption Currents: Maldives Raids Media After Money Laundering Report.
Authorities in Maldives raided a newspaper office and a nonprofit after Al Jazeera aired a documentary alleging money laundering by the government and implicating the president. The president’s spokesman called the documentary’s allegations baseless. (Guardian, Al Jazeera).
Maldives newspaper raided after corruption claims against the president.
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| Maldives president, Abdulla Yameen. A spokesman said the allegations against him were baseless. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images |
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| A general view of the port on the island of Male, capital of the Maldives. PHOTO: AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES |
Authorities in the Maldives have raided the offices of a newspaper and a human rights NGO and cancelled the passports of fugitive opposition figures after an al-Jazeera documentary aired corruption allegations against the country’s president, Abdulla Yameen.
Local journalists involved with the documentary, broadcast by the Qatari news network on Wednesday evening, had already left the country in anticipation of a backlash, amid warnings by senior MPs that contributors risked jail under defamation laws.
Hours after the documentary was posted online on Wednesday, police raided a building in the capital, Malé, housing the Maldivian Independent, a newspaper accused of links to the former president Mohamed Nasheed’s Maldivian Democratic party (MDP).
Nasheed was ousted in what supporters say was a coup in 2012 and is now living
in exile in Britain, a 13-year jail sentence hanging over him at home.
in exile in Britain, a 13-year jail sentence hanging over him at home.
Also in the seven-floor building were offices belonging to an MDP-linked law firm, a travel agency and a human rights NGO.
The Guardian understands that two men, neither of them employed by the newspaper, were arrested and accused of terrorism and plotting to the topple the government. They were released but will be questioned on Thursday....
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