Police in the Maldives have raided the offices of opposition-aligned news outlet Adhadhu Online and barred its editors from leaving the country after it published a documentary alleging an affair between President Mohamed Muizzu and a former aide.
The government on Tuesday defended the operation as a lawful response to what Muizzu has described as “baseless lies”. Minister of Homeland Security Ali Ihusaan said in a post on X that police were “right to investigate and raid the news outlet over false [adultery] allegations against the President”.
The raid took place late Monday night, hours after Muizzu called on “relevant authorities to press charges against all parties who spread such false information”. Police seized laptops and storage devices during the four-hour search.
The documentary, titled “Aisha” and posted on Adhadhu’s social media accounts on March 28, featured an anonymised interview with a woman who claimed she had a sexual relationship with Muizzu. The woman, who said she was a 22-year-old single mother, alleged the affair began last year after she joined the President’s Office as an administrator.
The documentary was released days before a constitutional referendum on April 4, in which 69% of voters rejected a government proposal to align presidential and parliamentary election cycles. Critics had argued the plan would undermine checks and balances.
The raid comes amid mounting concerns over press freedom in the Maldives, a Sunni Muslim nation. A widely criticised media law passed in September 2024 established a commission stacked with government loyalists, with powers to fine, suspend and shut down outlets.
A letter from the new regulator, along with a police intelligence report, formed part of the evidence for the search warrant. The warrant accused the outlet and its staff of “qazf” (false accusation of adultery), which carries a prison term of one year and seven months and can include 80 lashes.
Adhadhu CEO Hussain Fiyaz Moosa, who was slapped with a travel ban, condemned the police actions as an attack on press freedom. “This is being done by the police, with the influence of the government, on the government’s order, to directly stop our work,” he told Al Jazeera.
Fiyaz said police seized laptops of journalists, marketing staff and administrators, along with hard drives and pen drives, despite a court warrant that only authorised search and inspection. A separate criminal court warrant imposed a travel ban on him and Editor Hassan Mohamed until July 26, freezing their passports.
The order cited a police intelligence report alleging the two were planning to flee the country. Fiyaz, who had returned from overseas shortly before the raid, said the basis made no sense and noted police had not approached the newsroom with questions in the four weeks since the documentary’s publication.
Both editors have been summoned to appear before police on Wednesday. Fiyaz insisted the investigation would not stop Adhadhu’s work: “No matter how much the government wants to stop Adhadhu news, our voice and our pens cannot be silenced.”
The raid is not the first on Maldivian newsrooms. The offices of Maldives Independent were searched in 2016, and two TV stations were taken off air during the same period. However, the criminal use of “qazf” against a news outlet and the wholesale seizure of journalists’ computers are unprecedented.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) on Tuesday called on the government to return seized equipment and lift travel bans. “The raid on Adhadhu and subsequent travel bans are an attempt to criminalise investigative journalism under the guise of religious and national interests,” said CPJ’s Asia-Pacific Program Coordinator Kunal Majumder.
The Maldives Journalists Association also expressed alarm, stating: “The government is crossing a clear red line. We demand an immediate end to the intimidation of journalists and the suppression of press freedom.”
Source: www.aljazeera.com