#hilath

At last night's MDP rally, the first MDP gathering after the Elections Commission officially accepted his candidacy for the September presidential election, Nasheed said (English translation here): "If one tries to clothe oneself with an insufficient piece of cloth, then one's nakedness will be revealed."

Nasheed used the word "foogelhun" (Dhivehi translation here) from the old Maldivian saying or metaphor. From my travels to Maldivian remote islands in the 1980s when most men wore sarongs there, foogelhun means, before climbing a coconut tree, arranging the sarong in a sumo type of way (see here) so that the man's butt cheeks are seen and only the asshole itself is covered (traditional rustic Maldivians never considered the butt as nudity). If Nasheed in this instance says that an "insufficient" amount of "cloth" is used to do "foogelhun", then this means that the person's asshole itself will be revealed to the public. Haha! I couldn't think of a better insult to these homophobic political opponents who have been making comments like this about me. Thank you Nasheed.

A common false statement associated with the Maldivian Constitution goes like this.

The moment ur faith in Islam is gone ur no longer a Maldivian as per the constitution.

This is a completely false statement. Certain organizations and individuals feel the need to feed this fallacious statement in order to achieve their various political and or social agendas.

Our Constitution is easily accessible to anyone and a statement like this could be verified within five minutes. For this purpose I will be referring to the excellent English translation of the Constitution of the Republic of Maldives by Ms. Dheena Hussain.

Apparently, a Maldivian could lose his citizenship if he decides to become an apostate of Islam. As ridiculous as this sound (Given one would become completely stateless if this were to be true), there are many people who seem to think that this is in fact something that is written down in our Constitution and and thus the law of our land.

Let's look at our Constitution, particularly I would like to look at Chapter 1 (State, Sovereignty and Citizens), section 9.

According to our great Constitution, a citizen of the Republic of Maldives is defined as follows:

(a) The following persons are citizens of the Maldives:

citizens of the Maldives at the commencement of this Constitution;

children born to a citizen of the Maldives; and

foreigners who, in accordance with the law, become citizens of the Maldives.

This should be pretty clear to most people, now the confusion comes from clause (d) which is often misquoted and used incorrectly.

(d) Despite the provisions of article (a) a nonMuslim may not become a citizen of the Maldives.

The statement is very clear, basically it says that a non Muslim that wishes to become naturalized Maldivian (as in someone who is acquiring citizenship and not already a citizen) will be denied citizenship. This does not apply to anyone who is a current citizen

In fact, the people who abuse this clause seem to totally skip over one of the most important clauses in this whole section. A clause that has to do with depriving the citizenship of a citizen.

(b) No citizen of the Maldives may be deprived of citizenship.

In very plain language it simply means that a Citizen of Maldives can never be made a non-citizen unless he wishes to do it himself.

(c) Any person who wishes to relinquish his citizenship may do so in accordance with law.

Hilath Rasheed is a prominent and noteworthy figure in the LGBT community of Maldives. For the past 10 years, he has been slowly pushing the envelope with controversial subject matter via his blog. But this week, he shut his blog down due to the nuisance of Homophobes and Islamothugs conspiring to silence him.

No stranger to death threats, the latest unwarranted death threat to Hilath appeared on 9 September 2011 on an online newspaper against the governing party called Minivan Adu (Free Voice). The article was entitled, Is there no one to exterminate the traces of Hilath Rasheed. It is written in Dhivehi.

The article which does not attempt to conceal its endorsement of hatred and violence, called for the murder of Hilath Rasheed by way of asking the general public to do the dirty work. The article stated, "the punishment for such peoples are death according to the Shari'ah Law". The next line read, "[Hilath] is a plague on this society". Minivan Adu also says that there was no need for Maldivians to go abroad to Afghanistan or Pakistan to perform Jihad when Jihad was attainable right here at home.

This somewhat expected turn of events occurred with no provocation from Hilath, but as a direct result of hypocrisy, bigotry and self righteousness that is rampant in the majority Muslim island nation of Maldives. Hilath reckons a lack of education regarding sensitive issues plays a huge part in homophobic attacks on individuals such as this.

In an exclusive interview via the phone, Hilath confirmed he was safe and that he was not prepared to back down. However, he has given up the futile battles on the internet in favour of taking the fight to a street level with anticipation of real change. "We can't get our rights unless we take it to the streets", he said. Hilath doesn't encourage violence but stressed that he won't hesitate to do so in self defense.

Hilath went on to say that Queer Maldivians fighting the good fight on the internet everyday should continue to fight the good fight, and that if any one was ready to join him on the streets, they are welcome to and should do so.

Hilath revealed that he is working on a well thought out plan before taking the proverbial it to the streets. He refused to comment any further at this time.