Parliamentary Committee on Independent Institutions has summoned individual members of Maldives Broadcasting Commission (MBC) to probe cases related to the commission.
The decision to summon individual members of MBC, separately, was made at Wednesday's meeting held by the committee. A sub-committee was also formulated to carry out the task.
Although members were summoned to the sub-committee today, the meetings were closed to the media, citing the nature of the cases in question. President of MBC Mohamed Shaheeb was summoned first. The members of MBC were summoned to the Parliamentary Committee on Independent Institutions on June 19 as well. At the committee meeting, it was decided to dismiss commission members Ismail Sofwan and Fathimath Zaina.
However, before the parliament could deliberate on the matter, Ismail Sofwan resigned from the commission and was followed by the resignation of commission member Hassan Nabah. After the parliamentary committee meeting held on June 19, Shaheeb has been receiving a lot of criticism for statements made at the meeting.
At the meeting Shaheeb admitted to targeting a specific TV channel and making the decision to fine that TV channel during the previous administration. He also admitted that some of the decisions made by the commission were unjust.
Members of the commission also admitted to receiving instructions from some parliamentarians to take certain actions. Shaheeb claimed the decisions were made by the commission, without his participation. However, members dismissed Shaheeb's attempts to distance himself and instead said he should take responsible for the actions.
During the previous administration, MBC imposed hefty fines on news channels that broadcast anti-government news. However, regardless of pro-government news stations openly broadcasting defamatory content, those stations were not fined.