Pakistan's opposition leader Nawaz Sharif has recently been giving new meaning to the epithet 'power-hungry'. At a Muslim League rally where Sharif was speechifying on corruption in the government, news channels followed the apparently common practice of illegally tapping electricity to power the lights and sound generally required by these types of affairs. Newspapers pounced on Sharif for the power pinching, though of course he quickly denied personal responsibility. Meanwhile, President Asif Ali Zardari has been appealing to another kind of higher power. But the goat sacrifices evidently being performed daily to ward off the forces of 'black magic' and the 'evil eye' do not appear to have been particularly successful in dealing with the president's woes emanating from the judiciary and the army. The Dawn reports that the president even brought in a flock of black partridges for good luck, but a live wire fell on the cage and electrocuted the birds. Talk about bad luck!
On the subject of things falling from the sky, keeping your eyes upwards might be fair advice during foul weather in Dhaka. Recently, strong winds brought down a billboard hoarding atop a six-story shopping centre, crushing four cars and killing two people. The hoarding, like 80 percent of all such advertisements in the capital, was actually illegal, since a ban came into effect in 2005 following similar incidents of smashing advertising. Spurred by this recent tragedy, the Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) launched an overnight drive. Planning to start with two hoardings built in front of a police station, however, the drive had to be called off mere hours after it began – after the police escort tagging along protested and departed upon learning that a police box would have to be demolished in order for work to continue. Concerned for their safety, DCC workers followed suit. Here's hoping that future demolitions aren't left to Mother Nature.
After disturbing attacks on the press in the Maldives – senior officials of DhiTV being attacked on their premises, an employer for the newspaper Haveeru being stabbed in the back – President Mohammed Nasheed's office released a statement saying, "Maldivian media is free and open now. Maldives government will always support the efforts of the journalists to keep this freedom alive and will value their efforts…" Hear, hear! The president's party, the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), has had a rocky relationship with DhiTV, which had been banned from MDP rallies. The police have even entered DhiTV studios as it aired live footage of opposition-party protests earlier this year, on the flimsy stance that the coverage would incite violence. The Maldives Journalists' Association has dispatched a contingent to Colombo to highlight the situation of the Maldives' press freedoms to the international community.
Perhaps more troubling for this fledgling democracy, the Ministry of Islamic Affairs, drafting a piece of legislation called the Religious Unity Act, has recently been working very closely with at the Wahhabi NGO Jamiyathul Salaf, and is seriously considering its members' recommendations. Among the regulations submitted to and being considered by the attorney-general, Husnu Al-Suood, is the power to scrutinise presses and bookstores, and criminalise the publication of views deemed anti-Islamic. The Maldivian media may be 'free and open', as President Nasheed suggests, but what about the country's potentially persecuted presses?