Ali Khalid, the former Chief Communications Officer of the President’s Office, denied submitting requests at Maldives Media Council (MMC) to probe alleged defamation content published by any local media.
His statement comes in the wake of MMC’s notifications to several major media outlets ordering to be held accountable for publishing articles that allegedly defamed First Lady Fathimath Ibrahim. According to MMC’s notice, the issues regarding the articles were filed at the council last March 17 under the name of the Chief Communications Officer of the President’s Office, who at the time was Ali Khalid.
He was dismissed from his post on May 8.
Speaking to Mihaaru, Khalid insisted that he had not submitted any issues against media to the council during his tenure as the Chief Communications Officer. However, he disclosed that he had forwarded links of certain articles to the MMC upon their request.
“On their request, I sent the links using the [Chief Communications Officer’s] email address. I did not send any complaints, asking to press charges and take action against the media,” he declared.
Khalid went on to say that part of his responsibilities at the President’s Office was to monitor the media. He admitted that he had shared weekly and monthly reports with the authorities in question but insisted that he had not focussed on any specific people.
“I only brought the concerns raised by media to their attention, even to ministers,” said Khalid.
Meanwhile, MMC has decided to invalidate its notices to the media outlets regarding the alleged defamatory content against the First Lady.
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