Police say it did not summon the chief editor of local online news site 'Dhiyares', Ahmed Azaan over a news reporting issue and that it would never hinder journalistic rights and values.
This comes after Azaan shared the police summons on social media and said that he was being summoned for a criminal investigation after he had alerted the authorities about a loophole in the IGMH portal which would allow anyone to access another's health records.
While the summon came after President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih ratified the Evidence Act which forces journalists to reveal their source in certain cases and many questioned whether Police were enacting this law.
But in a clarification, Police said that Azaan was not being for anything related to news reporting.
Police said that the Chief Editor was asked to come in for questioning in their criminal investigation of how the private information of civilians and state officials was accessed via the IGMH portal.
They said that they have been conducting this investigation since February of this year and that they have questioned others during the investigation.
Police went on to say that Azaan was not being summoned because of anything he has written as a reporter and that Police would not do anything that would hinder press freedom in the country.
But Azaan had first notified IGMH officials of the data breach and then later reported on the issue.
The police summon prompted Maldives Journalistic Association MJA to issue a statement saying that it was concerned that a criminal investigation is being conducted against a journalist for an article he had written and that this could introduce a culture of threatening journalists.
