Urgent Call to Action: Protesting the Media Control Bill

The Maldivian Democratic Party calls upon both the president and the ruling-party affiliated parliamentarians to immediately reject the newly proposed media control bill.

The proposed bill seeks to consolidate the Maldives Media Council and the Maldivian Broadcasting Commission into a single entity under the control of the president, with greatly expanded powers to fine, suspend, and otherwise penalize media based on vague and subjective clauses. The bill’s excessively broad definition of media sources includes news agencies, magazines, publications of any kind, and most concerningly, any posts made on the internet, be it from registered media sources or individual citizens.

Since the introduction of the bill, the Maldivian Journalists Association has expressed concerns regarding the powers of censorship conferred to the state, organizing a petition that garnered the signatures of nearly 70% of all journalists registered in the Maldives. Their attempts at peaceful protest were met with violent arrests and the targeted harassment of journalists, as the administration continues to blatantly lie to the public in a coordinated misinformation campaign seeking to discredit journalists.

Numerous human rights and civil society organizations, including international organizations such as the Asia Program of the Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters Without Borders, and the International Federation of Journalists have since joined in condemning the bill and demanding its immediate ejection of the bill from parliament.

In a move that characterizes the Muizzu administration’s complete lack of regard for the fundamentals of democratic governance, the draconian bill seeking to place harsh limits on the freedom of speech and expression of both individual citizens and media organizations has now been pushed through the committee stage by ruling party parliamentarians, on this year’s International Day of Democracy. The committee, having ignored a petition by the Maldivian Journalists’ Association, passed the bill in secret after journalists observing and protesting the committee meeting were duplicitously escorted out of the premises. That the administration has resorted to such blatant misinformation campaigns while seeking to suppress independent media paints a crystal clear picture of where the country is headed.

Following the systematic dismantling of the independence of the legislative and judicial branches of our country, the president now seeks to censor and control one of the last remaining bastions of resistance against the autocratic rule that president Muizzu is imposing upon our country. We call upon members of the public to hold their parliamentarians and the Muizzu administration accountable, and to join journalists in protesting the draconian media control bill. The government must not be allowed to take away the constitutionally guaranteed right of Maldivians to free speech and expression; it will spell the beginning of the end of democracy in the country.