Can Aswan reform the police whilst trained torturers remain embedded in the system?

Mohamed Aswan, a former Lieutenant, has been transferred to the Home Ministry today, charged with reforming the police. The Maldives cabinet held an emergency meeting over the weekend amid fears of continued police brutality in custody. Aswan was appointed Minister of State for Home Affair yesterday. He was already a member of the new government, serving as Minister of State, Principal Collector of Customs.

Aswan was deputy in charge of the Maafushi Jail when Evan Naseem was murdered and several of his fellow inmates were shot to death. Prior to this event, Aswan filed a detailed report to those in charge of the military and police and warned that the system of abuse and torture in the jails will inevitably lead to extremes unless it is sorted immediately. [Aswan’s letter to the Commanding Officer and report dated 2 July 2003 – in Dhivehi]

In the report, Aswan stated “There exists a well ingrained and institutionalized system of torture in jail. This may lead to a deplorable situation with disastrous consequences. The jail squads in charge of inmates are well versed in the horrendous methods of torture. There even exists a special language, a lexicon where the commandant need not express in so many words which form of torture to inflict. One example of this lexicon is the order to take inmates to the beach.

Beach in this instance means to take the inmate/s to an isolated stretch of beach and bash them up with truncheons and military boots until they confess”. Lieutenant Aswan also gave detailed methods of torture and a list of the main perpetrators, many of whom three months later were exposed as the killers of Evan Naseem.

The culture of institutionalised torture inflicted on detainees and prisoners by Maldivian government's police and security forces (NSS) intensified and grew in magnitude by many multiples from the start of Dictator Maumoon Abdul Gayoom's long tenure of office from 1978 - 2008.

One of his first acts within months of appointing himself as Commander in Chief and Head of Police was to order the construction of wooden contraptions with tiny holes to lock up the ankles of prisoners. Several carpenters at the RKL workshop have made known their willingness to testify as witnesses. Cells measuring about 30 square feet were constructed in the island of Dhoonidhoo and various other islands in Male' atoll.

National Security Servive (NSS) jail squads began training under Libyan instructors under Gayyoom’s regime. Maldivians were little aware that this was a new start in institutionalizing an ingrained culture of torture. The methodology included evolving a special code of seemingly ambiguous language which to jail squads were clear as to which regimen of torture a victim is to be inflicted with.

Systematic Torture under Gayyoom’s brutal dictatorship continues…. why?

Repetitive systematic tortures under Dictator Gayyoom lasted 30 years. Since 1978, numerous inmates have testified that regular and institutionalized and repetitive systemic torture inflicted in Maumoon's jails include the following methods.

1. Solitary confinement by itself or together with one or more of the following methods of torture. Most solitary confinement cells are made of corrugated iron with barely enough room to move the body. There is no room to lie down. In the sun, the temperatures in these cells could exceed 40 degrees Celsius.

2. Handcuffing for extended periods, which may last months. Handcuffs are used to cuff together all four limbs in all imaginable permutations and combinations.

3. Putting in stocks / pillory (refer illustration) : The victim is restrained with his or her ankles and locked in holes in a block of wood. The victim's hands are cuffed and chained to one of his shins. The victim remains bent and does not have the use of his/her hands except when the chain holding the cuff is loosened for eating. Even then the victims hands are cuffed and has to eat off a plate kept on his lap. Defecation and urination is done on the spot and the victim remains with his or her own human waste for hours, sometimes days on end. Victims of the stocks almost invariably suffer from spinal conditions for life, if they survive this ordeal.

4. Hanging by the arms, legs. Sometimes from iron door or window frames, in a few instances, from the rims of water-wells.

5. Rape of women prisoners. Sometimes other women inmates are forced to watch.

6. "Mounting on the angle": The victim's arms are passed backwards through the vertical bars (about 60 cm apart) of the vent above the door in a prison cell. The wrists are then tightly handcuffed. The body is left dangling for hours at a time. The victim almost invariably has both shoulders and/or elbows dislocated during this exercise.

7. Indiscriminate beating
Often officials wearing military-style boots stomp on the victim. (in one well-documented case, a 17 year old youth was beaten up on the spinal area, in the interrogation room. He was paralyzed for life).

8. Lashed to trees in front of cell blocks
Female victims are left in various degrees of nakedness

9. Forcing detainees to stand on a chair
For hours with arms outstretched and a heavy object in each palm

10. Made to squat on the toes
with a length of timber between the upper and lower legs, tightly tucked behind the knee. The weight of the body results in the dislocation of the knee by a slow process.

Today, Dictator Gayyoom is suffering from acute dementia and doesn’t remember that, not only he knew and ordered to torture people, especially political opponents; he in fact trained and created a ‘torture’ force within the security apparatus to do just that.

Mohamed Nasheed (Anni) being arrested in April 2007, whilst protesting against the death in custody of Hussain Salah. Police used excessive force in the apprehension. Nasheed became the 1st democratically elected President of the Maldives and took office on 11th November 2008.

President Nasheed knows all about Dictator Gayyoom’s torture. Ask him to give detailed accounts of how many times he was unlawfully imprisoned, incarcerated and tortured.

President Nasheed will be lucky to reach 50 before he is paralysed from the chronic injuries to his spine inflicted by dictator Gayyoom’s torture force.

Sadly, many of these torturers remain in the Maldives Police Service even today and that is why we hear of torture stories every now and then.