Disturbing story out of the Maldives where the local government has just lifted a six day ban on the operation of spas after establishing they were not being used for prostitution – a claim made by the hardline Islamist opposition Adhaalath party which organised a “huge” anti-spa demonstration in the capital of Male. President Mohamed Nasheed reacted by banning spas, an extraordinary move given the importance of tourism to the Indian Ocean island nation, which last year hosted 850,000 tourists, but shows the power of Islamic politics and reveals a darker side to the tropical paradise. See full story.
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The government of Maldives is so hypocritical that it is doing something else other than obliging the simple demands of the huge protest by the Maldivians. The protest demands were very clear. They are:
1. To remove all idolatrous monuments in Addu City;
2. To condemn the speech of Pillay and make public apology;
3. To cancel all flights of the Israeli National Carrier;
4. Don’t declare parts of inhabited islands into uninhabited islands in order to sell liquour; and
5. Close down the massage parlours used as brothels in the capital Male’.
These were the five demands of the protest. It is important to note that it wasn’t a protest of extremists as the government label, but it was a protest of more than 100,000 Maldivians (a third of the total population) across the country including 10,000 in one rally in the capital, dissatisfied and fed-up with the government’s policies including anti-Islamic policies. The also include dissatisfaction of the economic policies of the government, which is hurting the ordinary people. The proof is the recent resignation of the Finance Minister and State Minister of Finance.
It is important to note that protest demand does not include closing spas of luxury resorts nor closing massage parlours in general. Also, there was no such demand to stop the sale of alcohol in the islands. The demand as you can see above was, Don’t declare parts of inhabited islands into uninhabited islands in order to sell liquor; this is about inhabited islands not uninhabited islands like tourist resorts. So, it is important for the outside world to know, what the government of Maldives doing is, their own agenda and not the protest demands.
These are the facts. It’s just a game the government is playing. The west is supporting the current dictator of Maldives in the same way they supported Mubarak and the co.
The current government is creating all these problems to cover their unpopularity among the public. Even the government ordered to close the spas, not a single resort is closing their spas. In fact, in the case of the first resort which were given orders (5 resorts of one of the opposition leaders Mr. Qasim), the court ordered to suspend that shutdown. The fact is the government is doing this to threaten the opposition, so as to show the outside world that it was a consequence of opposition demands. The fact is, opposition is made up of all other parties except the ruling MDP party. Because the protest was the biggest so far in the country, the government is making all these stupid decisions.