Breaking News, Opposition Protest
Senior members of several opposition parties got together Monday night and approached President Gayoom’s residence. They said they wanted to have a meeting about the process of ratifying the new constitution, but they were turned away because they didn’t have an appointment. A crowd gathered, estimated by police at 1,500 people. Things escalated to the point where several people were arrested. Here is the link to the story in the Haveeru newspaper.
The pictures and captions are from the Minivan news service, which is not accredited.
It wasn’t a good night for TV Maldives. A TVM cameraman was roughed up and police detained a news vehicle that was attempting to rush the footage back to the station. The private station, DhiTV, was first with the video. When TVM did get on the air with live coverage, it was an interview with the president’s official spokesmen. Other government officials also were interviewed about the constitutional process. However, the footage of the protest and the arrests was not shown until much later. I am told there was a technical problem with turning around the tape. No one likes to get beat on a story and the journalists at TVM are no exception. We are trying to do better job as the developments continue to unfold and we will try to be fearless — and fair to all.
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