Yameen Rasheed, a martyr for the freedom of speech in this darkening age, was searching for his friend Ahmed Abdulla, who had been abducted. “Mr. Rasheed said Mr. Abdulla’s abduction followed a pattern of increasingly hostile actions against those who question how Islam is practiced in the Maldives.”
“Amnesty International noted that the killing of Mr. Rasheed took place against the backdrop of the Maldivian authorities’ growing restrictions on public debate. ‘This crackdown has intensified in recent weeks and must end immediately,’ the organization said. ‘Authorities should protect those who speak out, not try to criminalize them.'”
How bitterly ironic. In the U.S., if you question how Islam is practiced, you won’t get abducted (yet), but you will get shadow banned by Facebook and Twitter, smeared by the Southern Poverty Law Center and others, and the New York Times itself will liken you to the jihadis you’re calling out. Neither Amnesty International nor anyone else will say, “Authorities should protect those who speak out, not try to criminalize them.” And no one will recognize the double standard, either.
“Outspoken Maldives Blogger Who Challenged Radical Islamists Is Killed,” by Hassan Moosa and Kai Schultz, New York Times, April 23, 2017:
MALÉ, Maldives — A liberal blogger who wrote satirical critiques of the Maldivian government and the spread of radical Islam died Sunday after being stabbed in the stairway of his apartment building.
The blogger, Yameen Rasheed, 29, had complained repeatedly to the police about receiving death threats, he said in an interview with The New York Times this year, adding that the police often failed to return his calls or dropped his complaints without investigation.
“In my case, I get multiple kinds of death threats from different people, because I write and do the campaign,” he said. Mr. Rasheed was a coordinator of a campaign to find his friend Ahmed Rilwan Abdulla, a journalist for The Maldives Independent who was abducted in 2014.
The police said that Mr. Rasheed was found with multiple stab wounds in his apartment building in the capital, Malé, shortly before 3 a.m. He was rushed to Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital and died soon after.
The Republic of Maldives, a nation of nearly 1,200 islands southwest of India, is best known as a spectacular vacation destination. But the country, with fewer than 400,000 people, has also become a source of recruits for the Islamic State. The government said at least 49 Maldivians had traveled to Syria to fight with the group, also known as ISIS; a 2015 study by an international security firm said the number was about 200.
The population, which is predominantly Sunni Muslim, has traditionally been liberal in its interpretation of Islam, with women rarely covering their heads. But a more conservative strain of Islam has spread in recent years under the increasing influence of Saudi Arabia, which sends religious leaders to the Maldives and offers scholarships to Maldivian students to study at Saudi universities.
A spokeswoman for the hospital, Zeenath Ali Habeeb, said Mr. Rasheed had been brought in at 3:15 a.m. with multiple stab wounds, having lost a lot of blood. He was unconscious and had a very weak pulse, she said, and he died while being treated.
His father, Hussain Rasheed, told the local news media that his son had been stabbed 16 times in the chest, neck and head.
Mr. Rasheed was best known for satirical Twitter posts and weekly posts on his popular blog, The Daily Panic, which riffed on the week’s headlines, often criticizing the government’s use of religion to appeal to the public.
He was also a coordinator of the Find Moyameehaa campaign, which was started after Mr. Abdulla was abducted almost three years ago.
Last year, Mr. Rasheed wrote on Twitter that he had reported receiving death threats to the police and had not received a response. Mr. Rasheed posted screenshots of the many threats he received on his social media accounts….
Amnesty International noted that the killing of Mr. Rasheed took place against the backdrop of the Maldivian authorities’ growing restrictions on public debate.
“This crackdown has intensified in recent weeks and must end immediately,” the organization said. “Authorities should protect those who speak out, not try to criminalize them.”
In his interview with The Times in January, Mr. Rasheed described how bloggers like himself and Mr. Abdulla were targeted by radicalized gangs in the Maldives, from which jihadists recruit fighters for the Islamic State.
Mr. Rasheed said Mr. Abdulla’s abduction followed a pattern of increasingly hostile actions against those who question how Islam is practiced in the Maldives. A couple of months before the abduction, a mob kidnapped several men affiliated with a Facebook group calling for secularism, accused them of homosexuality and atheism, and forced them to cite parts of the Quran before being released.
Mr. Rasheed said that nearly all of the 20 members of the group committed to finding Mr. Abdulla had received death threats, from people who brandished knives in public or through text messages. The messages were often graphic and called for their beheading….
Monty says
“Peaceful” Islam once again. The kind of peace you find in a cemetery.
Aniruddha Biswas says
Yes, these Islamists tolerate tourists for their dollars all the while silently cursing them for being kaffirs. The same is the case in my country, India. The Kashmiri Muslims, having murdered and driven out all the Kashmiri Hindus, tolerate Hindus from other parts of India because they bring in the money. Yet, not only do they abuse the same people (sometimes, as some reports say, in front of them in a language they don’t understand) but also proceed to shelter terrorists/islamic jehadists who are campaigning for an Islamic state in Kashmir.
Being ungrateful has been perfected to a fine art in islam, with full religious sanction. These same Kashmiris, who hate Hindus/Indians, think nothing of using Indian government quotas to study in India’s leading engineering and medical colleges, and even here attempt to spread jihadism by organizing revolts against the Indian state.
There’s no winning with them. They will suck you dry, then abuse you, and then try to kill you.
Good luck, Europe, with this scum.
Aniruddha Biswas says
Yes RCH I am Bengali Hindu but not from West Bengal, I am from Mumbai. But I know exactly what is going on in West Bengal thanks to the opportunistic jihadi-loving woman called Mamata Banerjee, who my stupid Bengali Hindu brothers and sisters voted to power.
Time is running out for Bengali Hindus fast. We have to remove this shameless woman if we are to save the lives of thousands of Bengali Hindus who live under perpetual fear of mosque-mobilized rabid fanatical jihadi attacks.
But will the Bengali Hindus do anything, or will they be too busy demonizing the very people who are trying to make them aware of this looming danger?
Going by past behaviour, they will do absolutely nothing at all.
J_not_a says
This poor man. May the True God bless and keep his soul safe in His memory until the resurrection.
jewdog says
The Maldives takes a dive. It needs a stay at a counter-jihad rehab.
Tom says
Rest in peace my fellow truth warrior.
Justin Trudeau please take notice of the following and don’t allow Canadians to be muzzled by M-103 and the kangaroo commitee set up by your government to propose law which will criminalize free speech in Canada.
“Amnesty International noted that the killing of Mr. Rasheed took place against the backdrop of the Maldivian authorities’ growing restrictions on public debate. ‘This crackdown has intensified in recent weeks and must end immediately,’ the organization said. ‘Authorities should protect those who speak out, not try to criminalize them.’”
TL says
I take it that those Aussies were multiculturalists. Well, all such people are arrogant twits, so it’s VERY difficult not to believe that they didn’t deserve to mocked and ridiculed by that Muslim leader. They are like a foolish farmer who finds a cold viper in his field and, being addled with indiscriminate compassion, picks up the viper and places it within his clothing to warm it.
I would agree that the anecdote you gave is not strictly analogous to the fable of the farmer and the viper, but the Aussies’ experience provides us with a useful segue to the ancient wisdom of that fable nonetheless.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/aesop/aes022.htm
mortimer says
Under Sharia law, an apostate may be murdered by a vigilante without a warrant. Anyone may murder an apostate with impunity.
Muslims know this.
Guy Jones says
Really — at this point in time, after 1,400 years of barbarism, conquests, atrocities and genocides committed under the banner of the ideology of “Submission,” can it be considered anything other than a cancer upon the world and the soul of mankind, a totalitarian and fascistic ideology that gives sanction to the most evil, callous and sadistic impulses of man?
With large swathes of North Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East under Islamic domination, with European countries (save Hungary, Poland and Switzerland) completely emasculated and possessing no will to defend their borders and their secular values and societies and inevitably falling prey to Islam’s oppressive inertia, North and South America remain the last land masses on earth that are not yet under the Islamic banner.
Islam the religion of killers says
Well that’s the end of their tourist industry …..
MikeC says
Islam is a religion of peace and if you say otherwise these same “peaceful” muslims will attack and kill you. Nothing proves your religion is peaceful like attacking and killing others right?
davej says
Saudi Arabia should be held responsible for spreading and financing the worst forms of Islam around the world.
Joe says
So Yahmeen was to Maldives what Robert Spencer is to the United States. If the RICO act doesn’t apply to Islam, then it should be repealed.
Yohanan says
Here’s to writers, authors, bloggers, journalists, whistleblowers, protest organizers who speak out despite dangers, threats and suppression even by their governments. Authorities close non-mainstream media, filter the internet, suppress, arrest, even make-disappear the gadflies, muck-rakers and dissidents. The powers control the mainstream media and think they own the web. They allow and promote “double standard” to suppress and de-legitimize opposing voices. Scary times.
May the United States not fall to that level. May the rights stated in the US Constitution, the Freedoms of Press, Speech, Assembly under the rule of law, protect us.
The world will remember the many journalists and bloggers who were murdered because they spoke against jihad and radical Islam, including Mr Yameen Rasheed of the Maldives.
And, l’havdil, may our courageous Mr. Robert Spencer keep safe and persevere to inform and point our way out of this mess.
Linde Barrera says
Rest In Peace, Mr. Yameen Rasheed. You were very brave.
Glyn Davies says
Its a shame…I just read Wales is off the list…Muldives has the clearest waters in the world