Under the cover of night, Maldives tourist resort worker Amindhy nervously enters a hotel room in the tiny island capital Male, lets her hair down to cover her face and sits with her back to a journalist's video camera. Amindhy was among thousands who took to the streets in August in an unprecedented protest against President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom's 26-year stranglehold on power. Her friends were jailed for weeks without charge, and she fears she could be next.
"They were blindfolded, handcuffed for a week. For what?" Amindhy said, giving her childhood nickname for fear of reprisals from a regime accused of endemic rights abuses and systematic torture.
"I am not free to talk," she added nervously. "I mean, I can't even say I don't like Gayoom, I don't want him to be the president. We can't talk at all."
Opposition parties are effectively banned under the Maldives constitution. So Gayoom's opponents have either fled into exile or meet secretly at night or behind closed doors, living in constant fear of arbitrary arrest.
Former university lecturer Gayoom, who took power in 1978 and is now Asia's longest-serving ruler, is credited with transforming the Indian Ocean island cluster into a luxury tourist mecca of white sand atolls and world-class scuba diving.
But his critics say he is an autocratic despot who rules like a sultan of old and has sold short around half of the 300,000 mostly Sunni Muslim population who live on a dollar a day despite the millions of tourist dollars flowing in.
Airport workers, waiters, students, prominent businessmen - even members of a special constitutional assembly entrusted with overseeing a raft of promised political reforms - all say they are desperate for freedom of expression and political alternatives.
They describe how they or friends or relatives who have protested or voiced dissent have been rounded up by the shadowy national security service and either left in solitary confinement for days or weeks, made to sit for hours in the burning sun on a remote beach - or even been sexually molested.
Gayoom dismisses critics of his nation's poor rights record and says he is at a loss to explain why his opponents are afraid to speak their mind in public. Shyness perhaps, he says.
"There are certain limits within which you are free to express your views," he told Reuters in a recent interview, accusing the detainees of terrorism, mob violence and crimes.
Maldives human rights commissioner Ahmed Mujuthaba is shocked by the volume of reports of abuse he has received.
"Some types of human rights cannot be respected under this constitution," he said. "We have substituted the word Sultan with the word President. It is the ruler's law rather than the rule of law."
The state controls the media. Dissent is quickly stamped on. Anti-government protests are deemed unlawful assemblies.
In the face of stern criticism from human rights groups, Gayoom has vowed to limit the term of the presidency, allow opposition parties to form, appoint a prime minister and strengthen the judiciary.
But many Maldivians are sceptical that Gayoom, who began a sixth term last year, will keep his word. They just wish he would step down.
"It is a feudalistic system," said businessman Mohamed Latheef, who lives in exile in neighbouring Sri Lanka and has formed the Maldivian Democratic Party - which Gayoom does not recognise.
"Gayoom is keeping opponents in jail because he wants to keep a rubber-stamp parliament," he added.
The European Parliament called for sanctions on the idyllic chain of 1,200 tiny islands, dotted across 500 miles (800 km) off the toe of India, after Gayoom cracked down on the August protest with truncheons and teargas and arrested hundreds.
Rights groups voiced outrage and around 40 people, including two members of parliament and five members of the constitutional assembly - or special majlis - have yet to be released or charged.
Gayoom and his government have been saying for weeks that the detainees would soon be released or charged. His attorney-general has already made up his mind.
"We have a lot of things we haven't disclosed to the world yet," Attorney-General Dr Hassan Saeed said. "All the special majlis members who are in detention will face charges. Offences against the state. Attempt to overthrow a lawfully elected government."
"Non-majlis members, we can charge all of them. I'll have to make up my mind whether to charge. And I can get a conviction," he added resolutely.
Reuters asked to visit the jailed protesters. Saeed said the government "didn't think it was a good idea".
"For 26 years (Gayoom) hasn't done anything to bring democracy in this country," said 29-year-old student Ahmed, also with his back turned to the camera to avoid being identified.
"It's all a dictatorship ... If you speak simply, it's like you'll be put in jail, you'll be tortured," he added. "(People) are simply scared of the government."
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