Shareholder: CNM pressured into saying they weren’t coerced into shutting down website

A shareholder of popular news website CNM, Ismail Rasheed said on Saturday that the business’s majority shareholder was coerced into saying that they did shut down their operations due to influence by the government.

Famous businessman and President of Maldives Association of Construction (MACI) Mohamed Ali Janah is the majority shareholder of CNM with 51 percent shares, while Ismail Rasheed owns 49 percent of the shares.

The news website was launched on May 3, 2011.

It shut down the website on June 24, 2016.

Janah had said that the website was not shut down due to any influence. And they simply did not want to continue with the business.

He said that the decision was made with the vote of all Board members.

Ismail Rasheed released a subsequent press statement in which he said that he believed Janah was coerced into making the statement by those pressuring them to shut down the website.

He said that senior officials of the government had tried to make CNM a news website which praised the government and refrained from criticism, and then tried to wipe out the news website when they failed in their attempts.

He said that Janah had resigned as Chairman of CNM due to the pressure, and tried to sell off his shares.

“The result of I and the rest of CNM refusing to bow down to pressure coming from within the government was CNM’s majority shareholder being left with no choice. This result in the decision to shut down operations last night,” said Ismail Rasheed.

He said that the decision to dissolve the business was pushed by Janah, and agreed upon by Board members – including he, himself.

He said that the decision was made to prevent any negative repercussions to Janah’s business, and to archive CNM’s articles and photographs instead of seeing them destroyed.