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Hassan Zahir from the Reefside group of companies was arrested on Wednesday 27 March by the National Security Service, say Maldivian sources. Reefside runs successful enterprises which deal in a wide range of consumer products including jewellery, electronic goods, accessories, and watches. Zahir has no previous criminal record, nor any history of religious activism, according to close associates and friends.

Businessmen in Maldives continue to be arrested, detained and interrogated as the Gayyoom regime harass all those who support the popular movement for party democracy and ministerial accountability to the Majlis, or parliament.

Hassan Zahir is undergoing interrogation at the NSS HQ in Malé. No local media coverage has been given to this matter, and Zahir has no legal representation. No charges have been laid. The only clue to the reason for his arrest is that, like all those arrested before him in the current crackdown, he is a supporter of former Malé MP Mohamed Nasheed, and Zahir himself has openly campaigned to register a political party.

Sources believe President Gayyoom will soon instruct the NSS to arrest Mohamed Nasheed's former campaign manager, Ahmed Mausoom, an importer currently in Colombo Sri Lanka. There is further speculation about the possible arrest of Gasim Ibrahim, a prominent businessman and philanthropist who is also currently president of the Maldivian Chamber of Commerce.

Previously, there have been government-sponsored smear campaigns against Hassan Zahir, accusing him of being a supporter of the fanatical Saudi Wahhabi sect. Malé observers describe this accusation as completely false and claim that, in fact, strong supporters of the Wahhabi sect are to be found among President Gayyoom's leading religious administrators, in particular Mohamed Rasheed Ibrahim, Ibrahim Zakariyya and Ahmed Farooq Mohamed.

Mohamed Rasheed Ibrahim

Rasheed studied at Azhar University in Egypt around the same time as Gayyoom. He has worked in an Islamic university in Saudi Arabia and is known by the popular nickname of 'Silly Rasheed'. He holds the positions of Chief Justice and President of the Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs, and has a reputation as the regime's 'court jester'. Zakariyya is an influential Maldivian educationist and propagandist and is known to be extremely fanatical. Farooq holds a senior position with the Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs.

Some anti-regime religious activists in Malé are closely watched by the NSS, but in the outer atolls Wahhabi-trained fundamentalist Maldivian sheikhs face few restrictions. Their teachings are often vitriolic anti-western diatribes, and for many devout islanders these imported Wahhabi doctrines have become an integral part of Maldivian nationalism.


The present round of political repression in Maldives is being closely watched by the British High Commission in Colombo and there are reports of an escalating dispute between the Maldivian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the British VSO office.