Maldives
Disappearing journalists and bloggers stabbed to death. Yet there are “encouraging results, promises to keep” when it comes to the freedom of the press in the Maldives, according to the Paris-based non-governmental organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
In 2019, the Maldives was ranked 98 out of 180 countries in a ranking system compiled every year by RSF using the World Press Freedom Index (WPFI). The ranking is based on experts’ responses to 87 questions regarding each country’s pluralism, media independence, transparency, legislative framework, environment and self-censorship, and infrastructure. RSF also takes into account violence against journalists.
This year the Maldives ranked 22 positions higher than last year and 10 positions higher than 2014. The reason for this improvement, according to RSF, is the election of a new president in 2018. Mohamed Solih, a member of the opposition, came to power in November 2018, replacing Abdulla Yameen as a president and promising to improve press freedom. He already kept one of his promises by repealing what RSF calls a “draconian” defamation law of 2016.
The Maldives went from being characterized as “not free” in 2017 by the Freedom House, an American independent watchdog organization, to being labeled as “partly free” in 2019. “Maldives declined from Partly Free to Not Free as the government further tightened its control of the media, including through the passage of new legislation that criminalizes defamation,” reported Freedom House in 2017.
In 2019, major changes were introduced under President Solih, who strengthened the political pluralism. However, the lack of freedom of political and religious expression is still a big issue. While there have been no journalists killed or imprisoned in 2019, the murder of blogger Yameen Rasheed in 2017 and the disappearance of journalist Ahmed Rilwan Abdulla in 2014, remain unpunished.
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Denitsa Yosifova is a student of Journalism and Mass Communication in the American University in Bulgaria. Her passion for digging up the truth doesn’t let her sleep at night.
