August 8, 2016

Two years. Two years to date since Ahmed Rilwan or the person more famously known by the name of ‘Moyameehaa’ went missing, and ‘they’ still remain silent.
A close companion to his family and friends, he is a kindhearted spirit who loves freedom and its principles, whose unexplained absence in their lives has been an inconceivable heartbreak till this day. He is a journalist, someone who toiled tirelessly, with great courage, against brutality and injustice to bring to light the reality of the darkest days we are witnessing in Maldives. He fought against rampant corruption and decay in our society, while still managing to retain his youthful and lively personality to engage people from all wakes of life.
Today, counting 730 days since Rilwan went missing, the questions raised in the immediate wake of his disappearance still remain unanswered, no progress reported by the ones responsible in their official capacity to investigate it. Was he kidnapped? Abducted? If anything of said nature had occurred, who are the ones responsible? During all this time, has any relevant government authority conducted the necessary probes into finding out his whereabouts? The uncertainty surrounding his eventual fate has had his family gripped in prolonged suffering, his friends in endless worry.
Two years has passed since Rilwan’s parents have been pleading with any and all relevant institutions and authority figures to find out what happened to their son. Similarly, the rest of his family has got all of their time and energy invested in this effort, their thoughts and minds continuously occupied by it. They have been knocking on the doors of all who are tasked with representing the people, calling on any who are mandated with protecting the rights of the common man. These recipients remain deaf, doors slammed in the family’s faces, calls hung up on, some even refusing to meet eyes. No answers, and nary a sound that they acknowledged any queries.
Even now, there is ample evidence and irrefutable facts to prove that linking Rilwan’s disappearance to an abduction or kidnapping is no mere daydream. Valuable intel sourced collectively by his family and friends, through exhaustively probing various people and chasing down numerous possibilities, has been shared with the authorities relevant to this case, highlighting any troubling conclusions. Rather than further investigating any of these alarming findings, the authorities in question have instead proceeded to try and criminalize the efforts being made towards finding Rilwan. Continued harassment aside, it is being made abundantly clear that the authorities are going out of their way to bury the whole debacle foregoing any efforts to unearth the truth. They have simply refused to look into any findings made privately in relation to this case. Is this hesitancy and cowardice the result of the corruption and injustice rooted in Maldives that Rilwan declared himself against? Or is it because he is not human or significant enough to warrant the effort?
Though ‘they’ claim ‘To Protect and Serve’ to be their motto, it is evident from their own actions that nothing could be further from the truth. Both the uniforms of color remain to be seen on the damning end of all allegations; having ignored eyewitness accounts, and continuing to disregard any intelligence reported regarding the incident. From the vehicles used to stalk Rilwan, the forensic evidence found in them, to the knife wielded as a bladed weapon, among the countless other evidence to be promptly swept under the rug, as if nothing had ever occurred in the first place. Do the people behind Rilwan’s disappearance have that kind of reach within our system? Just what manner of nightmare in daylight is this?
The questions are many, as the days pass us by, some of them become more defined, gaining meaning with new incidents that continue to shed light on the unexplained occurrences from then. The astounding level of deceit, treason among the ones tasked with ensuring the nation’s security and interests becoming more apparent to the public, day after day. Do ‘they’ think for a moment, that they are only duty bound to protect certain individuals, or persons as directed by a select few? Showing the world that justice is starts and ends with them, do they take for granted the titles and offices entrusted to them?
Today, Maldives is a country where, to satisfy the greed of the elites in power, the common man is trialed in broad daylight with farce accusations by the very institutions under oath to ensure our rights; this is an Islamic nation, where you find Muslims in name only. Under oath to God, from framing innocents, producing fictitious intelligence reports that suit their fancy, to conjuring criminal and civil cases out of thin air to pressure any who oppose them, and forcefully drowning all dissenters under false testimony and bribes, do they presume they can escape reckoning from that very God they swear to?
God is without doubt, all knowing and aware of every single secret and wrongful doing that man holds dear, and there will a come a day when he will humiliate the man of all his secrets. Fellow countrymen, take heed, when the leaders of a nation become an adversity upon its people, God is verily capable of bringing ruin to them. Just as the tyrant King Namrud in all his might was brought crashing down, just as the Pharoah and his vizier Haman were shamed and stripped of their power, and just as Qarun was drowned along with his wealth. All of these tyrants held wealth, kept protectors and security for themselves, none of which were of use to them in the unenviable way God wrought their ends.
Contemplate on this. The Maldivian people have been robbed of their rights and human dignity by and from the very top of the lauded hierarchy in this country, and the people continue to suffer on all fronts without an end in sight. “Not a single coin from the treasury will be spend on finding Rilwan!” – is said to be the response a top government official received upon probing into journalist Ahmed Rilwan’s missing persons case, and whose efforts were reportedly halted following the incident. This inhuman example too, if there is even a shred of truth in it, is one that would be shamed out and justly righted in its own time.
“And with Him are the keys of the unseen; none knows them except Him. And He knows what is on the land and in the sea. Not a leaf falls but that He knows it. And no grain is there within the darknesses of the earth and no moist or dry [thing] but that it is [written] in a clear record.” [Sūrah al-An`ām: 59].