It looks like it.

More than a hundred people, who did nothing more than to stand up for their basic rights, are languishing in prison because the Maldives government believes the international community will not do anything to stop it. Among them Shehenaz Abdulla, the coordinator of the Maldivian Democratic Party’s planned protest for 10 December, is reported to have been on hunger strike for more than a week now.

The right to assemble is a constitutionally-guaranteed right here in the Maldives, but Gayoom’s highly paid PR machine, including the notorious UK-based Hill and Knowlton, have spun the opposition’s protest as a violent coup attempt against the regime. India bought the spin first, and lackluster comments by the UN and the EU suggest that they may not be too far behind. Gayoom’s media wasted no time in telling Maldivians that the international community was with the government.

Indian news reports, in particular, have expressed more concern over how the alleged violence of MDP’s protest might destabilize the peace in the region (what peace?). In fact, the only violence that has ever erupted from these demonstrations has been exclusively perpetrated by the Maldives armed forces on the people.

India is now regarded by many Maldivians as a key supporter of the Gayoom dictatorship and it’s not difficult to see why. Last week saw the Maldives coastguard terrorizing islanders traveling to the capital Male for the protest. Using a navy ship donated by the Indian government earlier this year, the coastguard bullied a dhoni from Addu for more than 24 hours in which it struck the vessel and caused the food and water supplies to fall overboard. Later the coastguard continued its challenge in the one-and-half degree channel, the largest stretch of open sea in the Maldives, in clear violation of international maritime laws, before the brave islanders finally surrendered. Also last week, the Maldives armed forces stopped Male-bound protesters at sea and transported them to prison in handcuffs.

The UN system in the Maldives ignored these atrocities and, instead, seemed to collaborate with the dictatorship. After they turned political activist and popular cartoonist Ahmed Abbas to the police when he sought refuge in the UN building, the spineless resident co-ordinator Patrice Coeur-Bizot defended his actions by claiming there was no threat to Abbas.

In fact the UN-funded and now defunct Maldives Human Rights Commission had published a report cataloguing human rights abuses by the Maldives armed forces against inmates and detainees, as had several international organisations. Under these circumstance the UN’s refusal to grant refuge to Mr. Abbas are highly questionable. Thankfully, an Asian Human Rights group has already criticized Mr. Patrice’s actions and called on the UN to investigate the human rights abuses in the Maldives.

For Maldivians across the country fighting for real democratic change through non-violent means, the UN and international community’s response to the crisis at best reeks of disinterest and laziness and, at worst, is nothing short of betrayal of the very ideals they are supposed to represent. By failing to condemn the atrocities and harping, instead, on a “road map” they know Gayoom has no intention of implementing, the international community has effectively legitimized the dictatorship.

But UK’s Channel Four news on 10 November exposed the Maldives government for what it is: a desperate dictatorship using its oversized armed forces to suppress its own people. It is to be hoped that some action will be taken at the international level to end the sufferings of the Maldivian people under Gayoom.

International pressure is the only thing the Gayoom understands. When the EU threatened sanctions against the Maldives and to stop high-level government officials from entering its borders, the dictator was quick to act. Prisoners were released, international monitors were allowed in prisons and, for a while, the right to assemble was tolerated.

But with the pressure off Gayoom’s back he is today back to terrorizing his people. A few days before the protest, the armed forces stormed into the MDP office to steal their PA system, pepper-spraying everyone in the office at close range for good measure while they were at it. Shortly afterwards they were riding around in trucks and singing Gayoom’s pseudo-patriotic songs.

For me, it was business as usual with Gayoom telling everyone who’s boss.