8 March 2012 at OpenDemocracy, Salem News (Oregon), Huffington Post
and International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC)

Well before the launch of the Arab Spring, the people of the Maldives, a Muslim nation located on a tropical archipelago in the Indian Ocean, were engaged in widespread nonviolent resistance against the 30-year reign of the corrupt and autocratic president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom. The growing civil insurrection forced the dictator to finally allow for free elections in October 2008, which he lost. This triumph for democracy is now threatened as a result of a coup last month led by allies of the former dictator and hardline Islamists.