Yameen Rasheed, the last remaining secular blogger—the young man who, when I asked him why he didn’t leave, had told me simply: But I’m not the odd one here—was finally killed. It happened on April 23, 2017. For weeks he had been constantly threatened, publicly as well. Yet the police never even responded to his phone calls.
Now it’s Yahya Raha’s turn. He is hiding on an uninhabited island, while people online discuss how best to eliminate him. He has a plane ticket for Europe. And if he makes it there alive, he will join Zaheena Rasheed, who has not returned.
Who can’t return.
And that is not to say that they will finally be safe. Muji Naeem, another long-time activist, who does not appear in this book only because he had already sought refuge in Sri Lanka, was identified and hunted for months. Forced to flee again.
My work, Al-Jazeera’s work, would no longer be possible today. Foreign journalists are immediately arrested and repatriated. They keep saying it’s all a conspiracy to destroy tourism, the economy, and the government. And in fact, now that this story is known throughout the world, many readers write to me. “The resorts aren’t dangerous, are they?” they ask. “You know, because I’ve already paid the travel agency.”
July, 2018