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The culture of institutionalised torture in Maldives

MDP Publication - www.maldiviandemocraticparty.org - 27th October 2004

Torture: " Any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted by or at the instigation of a public official on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or confession, punishing him for an act he has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating him or other persons." - Customary International Law of Human Rights under which a State violates international law if, as a matter of state policy, it practices, encourages, or condones torture or prolonged arbitrary detention.

The culture of institutionalised torture in Maldives
The culture of institutionalised torture inflicted on detainees and prisoners by Maldivian government's police and security forces (NSS) intensified and grew in magnitude by many multiples from the start of President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom's long tenure of office from 1978.
One of his first acts within months of appointing himself as Commander in Chief and Head of Police was to order the construction of wooden contraptions with tiny holes to lock up the ankles of prisoners. Several carpenters at the RKL workshop have made known their willingness to testify as witnesses. Cells measuring about 30 square feet were constructed in the island of Dhoonidhoo and various other islands in Male' atoll.

NSS jail squads began training under Libyan instructors. Maldivians were little aware that this was a new start in institutionalizing an ingrained culture of torture. The methodology included evolving a special code of seemingly ambiguous language which to jail squads were clear as to which regimen of torture a victim is to be inflicted with.

Inmate's death results in wider exposure of torture

One inmate Eevan Naseem (24) courageously took the President's brutal torture methods to it's natural and vicious conclusion and paid the ultimate price. His killing by the NSS culminated in the exposure of the wicked and horrendous tortures being inflicted by President Gayoom's prison squads in the previous 26 years. On the night of 19 September 2003, Eevan's hands were raised and cuffed behind his back to an iron window sill at an isolated workshop in Jail before 12 policemen viciously bashed and hammered him to death using batons, wooden boards, chairs and iron pipes. His prostrate body was then kicked by guards wearing heavy military boots. Burning embers were doused on his limbs and legs to check whether he was faking death.

The NSS tried to quickly bury his body after his mother Mrs.Mariyam Manike was shown only his face at the government hospital in Male'. A fiery and detrmined woman, Mrs. Manike tore the sheets from her son and began screaming, gathering a crowd of people at the hospital. The gathering overpowered the NSS squad guarding the inmate's corpse. Events that followed led to widespread riots both in the capital and in the prison islands. The next day, guards opened fire directly at unarmed prisoners wounding 21 and killing three. President Gayoom was forced to appoint an independent commission of inquiry, whose findings brought to light, to a much larger segment of Maldivian society, the many methods of institutionalized and systemic torture being inflicted on inmates.

Official document validates allegations of institutionalized torture

One document that came to light at the inquiry was a report filed by Lieutenant Mohamed Aswan a senior official overseeing Gayoom's jail squads. The exposure led to the resignation of Captain Ibrahim Rasheed who was the recipient of Lieut. Aswan's report (a full transcript of the Lieutenant's report is available at MDP offices). In it he states: 'There exists a well ingrained and institutionalized system of torture in jail. This may lead to a deplorable situation with disastrous consequences. The jail squads in charge of inmates are well versed in the horrendous methods of torture. There even exists a special langusge, a lexicon where the commandant need not express in so many words which form of torture to inflict. One example of this lexicon is the order to take inmates to the beach. Beach in this instance means to take the inmate/s to an isolated stretch of beach and bash them up with truncheons and military boots until they confess'. The lieutenant also gave detailed methods of torture and a list of the main perpetrators, many of whom three months later were exposed as the killers of Eevan Naseem. These torturers are yet to be sentenced in the court case ongoing for the past year.

Parts that were expunged by the President from the commission reports indicate his culpability in the prison deaths related to the incident.

A well ingrained system of torture

This process of torturing inmates begins with arrest. There are various modes of arrest, where the most acrimonious was the bludgeoning of the scores of people that were batoned and 'lati' charged by the police on 13 August 2004. In this particular instance, detainees were blindfolded and cuffed for days on end. (They were taken to various detention centers by sea transport in blindfolds and cuffs). Widespread condemnation of these brutal acts brought into focus the penal system of the country for Maldivians as well as foreign governments and institutions.

Other methods include 'raiding' a house where NSS squads would ransack the victim's living quarters and or any other rooms that the arresting officers may fancy. The more feared method is being served a summons to the Police Headquarters. Respondents to such summonses would be heard of by their respective families only after his regimen of punishment begins, sometimes months after that person was last seen entering Police HQ. A familiar mode of informing the family was to ask them to send toiletries for the detainee. This often means that the victim had been broken, had 'sung', and a confession extracted.

Often Gayyoom orders torture regimens personally

In a country where 'Miranda' rights do not apply nor is there a law governing powers of arrest, torture methods that would consolidate Maumoon's eerily despotic rule is personally overseen by him. Twice, thrice and if necessary, five days a week, the President in his capacity as Police Chief reviews the treatment of inmates held by the NSS. Officers who present these cases are addressed in a special lexicon which is readily understood by jail squads. Should the officer advice that the victim had not confessed to accusations, the President is known to say 'you can make him speak'. This means : jack-up the level on punishments being meted out.

In his 26 years of rule, Gayyoom has not made any efforts to teach forensic methods to the Police. They are not even trained to fingerprint nor are they trained in crime scene observations. These are deemed unnecessary in a system that relies on extracting confessions (euphemistically called an 'investigation', by the police as well as judicial officials). The justice system in large part relies on these confessions (referred to as Bayaan in Arabic, which means 'statement') to mete out whatever sentence that is again approved directly or indirectly by the President.

Repetitive systematic tortures of the past 26 years

Since 1978, numerous inmates have testified that regular and institutionalized and repetitive systemic torture inflicted in Maumoon's jails include the following methods.

1. Solitary confinement by itself or together with one or more of the following methods of torture. Most solitary confinement cells are made of corrugated iron with barely enough room to move the body. There is no room to lie down. In the sun, the temperatures in these cells could exceed 40 degrees Celsius.

2. Handcuffing for extended periods, which may last months. Handcuffs are used to cuff together all four limbs in all imaginable permutations and combinations.

3. Putting in stocks / pillory (refer illustration) : The victim is restrained with his or her ankles and locked in holes in a block of wood. The victim's hands are cuffed and chained to one of his shins. The victim remains bent and does not have the use of his/her hands except when the chain holding the cuff is loosened for eating. Even then the victims hands are cuffed and has to eat off a plate kept on his lap. Defecation and urination is done on the spot and the victim remains with his or her own human waste for hours, sometimes days on end. Victims of the stocks almost invariably suffer from spinal conditions for life, if they survive this ordeal.

4. Hanging by the arms, legs. Some times from iron door or window frames, in a few instances, from the rims of water-wells.

5.Rape of women prisoners. Sometimes other women inmates are forced to watch

6. "Mounting on the angle": The victim's arms are passed backwards through the vertical bars (about 60 cm apart) of the vent above the door in a prison cell. The wrists are then tightly handcuffed. The body is left dangling for hours at a time. The victim almost invariably has both shoulders and/or elbows dislocated during this exercise.

7. Indiscriminate beating. Often officials wearing military-style boots stomp on the victim. (in one well-documented case, a 17 year old youth was beaten up on the spinal area, in the interrogation room. He was paralyzed for life).

8. Lashed to trees in front of cell blocks. Female victims are left in various degrees of nakedness

9. Forcing detainees to stand on a chair for hours with arms outstretched and a heavy object in each palm

10. Made to squat on the toes , with a length of timber between the upper and lower legs, tightly tucked behind the knee. The weight of the body results in the dislocation of the knee by a slow process . (list of torture methods independently verified by numbers of victims, also sourced to <http://www.maldivesroyalfamily.com>

"A dictatorship that destroys the intelligentsia and culture leaves behind itself an empty, sour field on which the tree of thought won't grow quickly" - ( Ryszard Kapuscinski quoted by Xavier Romero-Frías )

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