HRD and blogger Yameen Rasheed Murdered

On 23 April 2017, human rights defender Yameen Rasheed was stabbed to death in the country’s capital Malé. He was found in the stairwell of his apartment at around 3 am with multiple stab wounds and died soon after he was taken to hospital.

Yameen Rasheed was a prominent human rights defender and social media activist in the Maldives. Through his blog The Daily Panic, he was an outspoken critic of government corruption and was vocal against impunity for crimes against journalists and attacks on freedom of expression  committed by radical Islamist groups. Yameen Rasheed was a close friend of Ahmed Rilwan Abdulla, another well known Maldivian journalist, blogger and human rights advocate, who was abducted and disappeared in 2014. Since 2014, Yameen Rasheed had been working to obtain justice for Rilwan, and was recently coordinating with Rilwan’s family to file a case against the Maldives police on the investigation of Rilwan's death. In 2015, he was arrested along with 200 other activists and imprisoned for three weeks after taking part in a pro-democracy rally in the capital.

On 23 April 2017, Yameen Rasheed was found in the stairwell of his apartment building in Malé with multiple stab wounds to his neck and chest. He died shortly after being taken to hospital. In the past few years, Yameen Rasheed had received numerous death threats via text messages and social media for his views on corruption within the government and the police and the attacks on freedom of expression perpetrated by religious groups in the country. However, the Maldivian police failed to investigate the threats and to provide proper protection for the blogger.

The Maldives ha a troubling history of attacks targeting human rights defenders, journalists and bloggers. On 5 June 2012, blogger, LGBT activist and journalist Ismail Khilath Rasheed, also known as Hilath, was stabbed by radical Islamists. On 8 August 2014, prominent HRD Ahmed Rilwan went missing and has not been heard of since then. On 4 September 2015, human rights lawyer Mahfooz Saeed was brutally attacked by two unidentified men in Malé and sustained stab wounds on one side of his head.

Front Line Defenders strongly condemns the killing of Yameen Rasheed, which it believes was solely motivated by his legitimate and peaceful activities in the defence of human rights and democracy in the Maldives.

Front Line Defenders urges the authorities in Maldives to:

1. Condemn the killing of human rights defender Yameen Rasheed;

2. Carry out an immediate, thorough and impartial investigation into the killing of Yameen Rasheed, with a view to publishing the results and bringing those responsible to justice in accordance with international standards;

3. Take all necessary measures, in consultation with the defenders, to guarantee the physical and psychological integrity and security of human rights defenders working in the Maldives;

4. Investigate reports of death threats and other forms of intimidation against human rights defenders and journalists, and adopt immediate measures to ensure their protection;

5. Guarantee in all circumstances that all human rights defenders in the Maldives are able to carry out their legitimate human rights activities without fear of reprisals and free of all restrictions.