Abdul Ghani Ismail, 56 appeared in court on Thursday for harassment charges.
Ghani was arrested in June after a young woman posted a video on social media claiming he followed her on his motorbike while making inappropriate gestures and sexual comments towards her.
He was charged with disorderly conduct for using abusive and obscene language, making obscene gestures, persistently following a person and soliciting sexual contact in a public place. While each offence is specified as a class three misdemeanour and carries a jail sentence of one month and six days according to section 615(a) of the 2014 penal code, the prosecution only sought two counts to avoid double jeopardy said prosecutor presenting the charges, Fathmath Shifaza.
If the defendant confesses, he would face a jail term up to 54 days maximum, however, he had denied the claims.
In addition to this, he had pleaded with the judge to release him on house arrest so that he can hire a defence lawyer and that he was only allowed to make calls to his wife from the jail. There is no legal basis to release a defended to allow him to hire a lawyer said the judge. He also mentioned that public defendants were only appointed by the sate for cases classified as serious crimes.
The judge ordered the detention centre to arrange daily phone calls and to provide contact numbers of Ghani’s friends from his confiscated mobile phone. He concluded the proceedings by granting the defendant a 10-day period to appoint legal counsel.
This is the first time that someone is charged for street harassment in the Maldives. a survey done in 2015 had shown that 96% of the Maldivian women had been victims of sexual harassment in public, 60% were abused before the age of 14, 40% before the age of 10 and that 89% of victims of abuse had not reported the incident to any authority figures.
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