Posted: Sun Feb 06, 05 9:09 am Post subject: Crossing Continents
Radio 4 Thursday 11:00 Crossing Continents
The Maldive Islands have asked the international community for well over a billion dollars to help them recover from the havoc wreaked by the Asian tsunami. The government there is keen to restore the islands' image of a palm fringed paradise surrounded by a turquoise sea of breathtaking beauty. But for many Maldivians this carefully nurtured image belies a reality of political repression and the abuse of human rights.
According to Amnesty International dozens of people have been locked up without trial in recent years and there are well documented accounts of ill-treatment and political intimidation. President Gayoom - who has kept a steely grip on the islands for the past 26 years - also attempts to control the internet - and has come down hard on those who use the web to criticise his leadership. Those who persist have had to flee and now operate abroad.
In Crossing Continents, Julian Pettifer travels from Salisbury to Sri Lanka and on to the Maldives to talk to the people fighting for the political future of the islands. He witnesses the country's parliamentary elections and assesses whether the natural disaster of the tsunami might bring about the political changes longed for by the opposition - or whether it will just be business as usual for the president and his cronies.
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