Vilu Reef Maldives Resort Marriage Hoax Leads To Arrests

A Swiss couple who thought they were renewing their vows in a tropical ceremony were actually the subject of vicious verbal attacks by the officiator, reports the AP.

In a video taken of the ceremony, the officiator chants in the local language, Dhivehi, in what would appear to be prayer. In reality, the resort employee is calling the couple "swine" and infidels, reports the Guardian. The paper quotes the man as saying:

The children that you bear from this marriage will all be bastard swine. Your marriage is not a valid one. You are not the kind of people who can have a valid marriage. One of you is an infidel. The other, too, is an infidel and, we have reason to believe, an atheist, who does not even believe in an infidel religion.

The BBC also reports that the tirade made frequent references to homosexuality and bestiality, and that after the ceremony, "various comments are made about the bride's breasts." Video below.

The video was uploaded to YouTube, and has since gone viral, complete with subtitles. The marriage mayhem not only ruined the couple's Maldivian memories; two employees of the resort have been arrested, says the BBC, and President Mohammed Nasheed condemned the hoax in his weekly radio address, saying:

Bad behaviour, such as that depicted in the YouTube video, can cause enormous damage to the country's tourism industry.

Foreign Minister Ahmed Shaheed has also issued an apology and asked to meet with the couple, according to the AP. The archipelago is a common wedding destination.

WATCH THE VIDEO:

Comments

[neogejo]

08:34 PM on 11/03/2010

One sure way to combat this type of abuse is not to vacation there. Let the government know that if the locals could not welcome tourist and make sure that their stay is pleasant and free from unknown abuse then no "infidel" money will go to support their government or their peoples livelihood.

[ArtisticSavant]

07:58 AM on 11/03/2010

if they felt this way about "infidels" they shoudn't be working in tourism or accepting to marry anyone not of their religion! I doubt they had a problem spending the infidel's money. I live in a country which is predominantly Muslim. We have a thriving tourism sector here and many foreigners come here to get married. Our imams will not marry any couples unless they are both Muslim. You can easily have a faux wedding done in one of the historical sites but these are recited in English only. I dont blame the couple - what a horrible experience. especially because it's all over the world now. The blame lies 100% on the hypocrite who doesn't have a problem taking infidel money but then is too dumb to realize that today anything can end up going viral. I wonder how many other weddings they've done like this. just pathetic.

You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist. Nietzsche

[Maldives Resortworkers]

10:32 PM on 11/03/2010

What does "they" mean here? the whole country? how does somebody justify punishing a whole country for the actions of a few?

[ArtisticSavant]

04:04 AM on 11/04/2010

obviously..."they" means the people in the video conducting the ceremony. Who (I assume) are also the "they" who accepted infidel money for this service.

There is no victimization of "a whole country" in my post. Nor is there any mention of "punishing a whole country". I said the persons who are conducting the wedding service (meaning the ones you can see and hear in the video) are hypocrites because they accept and are paid for these services. If they don't agree with other religions or other ways of life then they should not accept money or agree to do services for these people.

Too often people want to become the victim and not take responsibility for their actions. IMO the victims are the tourists who (rightly or wrongly according to your opinion) trusted that they would get the service they paid for, not more - not less. The hypocrites who conducted the service for pay were certainly not victims!

[Gasparilla]

07:08 PM on 11/01/2010

This is for the people below who want to insist that tourism is automatically bad for a country and that most of the people end up living in poverty. The Bahamas has an average income of fifteen thousand dollars and no income taxes. A lot of their money to run the government comes from "customs" fees, in other words the fees they collect from port and airline fees. So tell them how they are being exploited.
http://www.allianceinvest.com/bahamas/e1_about.php

[jeremyemilio]

10:32 AM on 11/03/2010

? Crazy that you would even have to write a post like this. Tourism is awesome for a nation's economy, and people. Tourists create wealth elsewhere and then bring it in and leave it there. How in he// could anyone argue with that? Sometimes the owners of tourist destinations are not locals, so much of the wealth gets siphoned back out, to be sure, but even that is better than the alternative, which is for said owners to use their ownership power to siphon local wealth out of the nation (as with fa actory farm, or a toy factory, for instance).

[GeorgeP922]

02:12 PM on 11/01/2010

This is too funny!

[SGTDBK]

01:47 PM on 11/01/2010

Truly ignorant tourist..What do you expect getting your vows done in a foreign country where you don't understand the language?

This couple should just go home and forget about it while living their middle class lives...the poor resort workers already got fired and arrested over a prank...

[Graceless]

10:54 AM on 11/02/2010

Yes. This was clearly the fault of the tourists.

[Phillyfox]

07:40 AM on 11/01/2010

Ah, the sanctity of marriage

[Maldives Resortworkers]

10:27 PM on 11/03/2010

It was not a marriage, rather a symbolic renewing of vows. a kind of feel good ceremony..
check this link: http://www.tourism.gov.mv/downloads/news/2010/press_release_news_vilu_eng.pdf

[Auburn tiger]

05:18 PM on 10/31/2010

I lived in the Maldives during the 90's. I was a teacher there and interacted with both children and their parents. Generally they are nice people but a large number of people are highly influenced with radical Islamic views. These are the sector of the population who live below the poverty line and face with lot of marital and family issues.Using foul words is very common among the Maldivians. I learned most of the cussing words in Dhivehi within 6 months so that I can understand and comment on what they say against me. This incident is not an isolated one. they really have to get into the core of this issue and make things better for them.

Most of the Maldivian are too proud of themselves too. they think they can afford to bring in expatriate to come and work for them and the tourist from all over the world are coming to enoy the beauty of their land and waters. In reality expatriated are going there to educate them and the tourist are contributing to more than 50% of their economy. But they are not aware of these fundamentals.

[Maldives Resortworkers]

09:11 PM on 10/31/2010

generalizing huh? The expatriate influx was created by corruption. Not because Maldivians are proud or arrogant. Under the former administration, expatriate workers flooded the country because the process was not regulated. Even the labour ministry staff operated expat importing agencies right in the ministry itself! They even didn't have a proper count of how many expatriates worked in the country at that time. The register is still being checked and re-checked. Read the news.

[shthar]

02:23 AM on 11/01/2010

Sounds like america.

[MIKEinNYC]

03:34 PM on 10/31/2010

Hahahaha. What shmucks!

How'd the onlookers keep from cracking up?

[KIVPossum]

10:56 AM on 10/31/2010

LOL. That's what you get for trucking halfway around the world to have a fancy smansy wedding done in a foreign language.

[MarcEdward]

12:22 PM on 10/31/2010

I would guess that this sort of thing happens all over the world every day.

[Yepperday]

02:09 PM on 11/01/2010

Your fear of anything outside your norm is showing, bud. It's pretty sad.

[bamz]

10:24 AM on 10/31/2010

look I agree that persons like these should find another job, and I am not condoning the acts, however I am putting them in their historical, geopolitical cultural context. tourism, while brings some money to some locals, is debasing, a form of collective prostitution, because it does not occur between equals, and has a significant colonial legacy..if you cannot see that then, stay home.

[Gasparilla]

11:39 AM on 10/31/2010

And if you cannot advertise truthfully that you will perform ceremonies in the respectful manner represented, and you cannot do the job that you allege you will do, then don't have tourists. Your thoughts on tourism are ridiculous, bordering on lunacy. There is no country in the world that does not try desperately to get more tourists. Because it's free money and has nothing to do with colonialism or prostitution.

[TStringfellow]

01:07 AM on 11/01/2010

The fact that nations try to attract tourist dollars does not mean the local population is not exploited by the industry. Do you really see no difference between the goals of individual people and that of a national government?

Anyone who has ever left the Western world (I'm quite sure you are not one of them) cannot help but observe the exploitative nature of tourism. That is not to say that the money we spend doesn't help in some way, some times it does some times it doesn't, that isn't the point. The point is that these people have no other choice but to make their living by catering to rich foreigners. If you can't see something kind of sad about that then I pity you.

[jeremyemilio]

10:50 AM on 11/03/2010

As a Canadian from a town (Moncton) and province (New Brunswick) that runs on tourism, I couldn't disagree more. Try peddling that to teenaged lifeguards and tour guides at Magic Mountain and Magnetic Hill. Try peddling it to the River Keepers who have been successful in taking steps to having the Petitcodiac River restored through the removal of a causeway, largely due to the promise of tourist dollars. Tell that to Stewart of Stewart's Tubing who opened his own business on the Miramichi River that is flocked to by thousands of tourists every day. Tell that to the restaurants, and hotels, and beds and breakfasts that thrive from the tourist industry. Tell it to the lobster fishermen, who sell half of their product to tourists. And better yet, tell that to all of those people when they take the cash they've earned from the tourist industry, and put it into a vacation to New England where it re-circulates to the very tourists (now locals) from whom it originated, in exchange for goods and services. Sounds like an exchange between equals to me. Granted, this is not always the dynamic in Southern and Eastern tourist destinations, but it's pretty hard to argue that tourism has anything to do with it in the face of control cases in other Western nations, or even within your own.

[bamz]

05:00 PM on 11/03/2010

Strange that all your examples of unexploitative tourism come from a First world country; Canada..you seemed to miss the point young man..go fish!!

[Amber Berglund]

09:55 AM on 10/31/2010

This is bad because it hit YouTube. I think the Government Officials understands how serious this is, because it could affect tourism in a very negative way.

There are other tropical tourist destinations where things like this wouldn't happen. People could go to Hawaii instead.

I know if I were renewing vows, I wouldn't want someone cursing the union in a language I didn't understand. Those people don't need tourist dollars, apparently.

[TStringfellow]

01:08 AM on 11/01/2010

Hahaha, have you been to Hawaii? Some of the most hostile and small minded locals in the world over there!

[HawaiiSteve]

03:01 AM on 11/04/2010

You have no idea what you're talking about! I have lived in Hawaii for 30 years and never had a problem with racism. Both of my kids (blonde hair and blue eyed) grew up in Hawaii and attended rural high schools (Honoka'a) where they were the minority, and never had a problem. The only people that have a problem with "locals" are people that don't show respect and treat them as less than equals. Perhaps your experience with Hawaiians comes from your poor attitude. Sounds to me like you should confine your vacations to Las Vegas.

[tuneup2]

02:05 PM on 11/09/2010

I am a native of Hawaii and a direct decendent to the Royal Family. My people are the smartest and well behaved persons on earth and has been for centuries. It is persons like you that we have zero tolerance for. We live on the words that respects all races as long as you do not disrespect. And you are disrespectful. It is clear why you had a "hostile" time in the land of my ancestors. From the sounds of it you walk with great shame of who you are and we Hawaiians can sense that. We know the earth, sky and water and you know nothing.

[Non-Compassionate Liberal]

03:52 AM on 10/31/2010

See, what you don't know won't hurt you. If not for YouTube, the couple would have lived happily ever after!

[Flokk]

11:55 PM on 10/30/2010

Shockingly tasteless and cruel does not even begin to describe this.

[ammsamm]

05:59 AM on 10/31/2010

I, myself, thought the molestation and rape of thousands of young children for years all over the world with senior level cover up by the Church and the Pope, more shockingly cruel and tasteless. Money laundering by the Church of thousands of dollars of money donated by people for charity is also more shockingly cruel and tasteless.

I also find the extraordinary rendition and torture of thousands of innocent people by the US much more shockingly cruel and tasteless.

I find the U tube video of the Israeli soldier dancing and gyrating and singing around a blindfolded Palestinian woman more shockingly cruel and tasteless.

This was a stupid prank by bored workers, who were immediately fired and arrested, with the government issuing an apology.

Big, big difference.

[deluk]

07:59 AM on 10/31/2010

seriously, on the scale of "shockingly tasteless and cruel" it doesn't rate that highly.

Rude and unfortunate maybe.

[Flokk]

10:23 AM on 10/31/2010

I appreciate your efforts to clarify my internal dictionary. But I'm fine, thanks. ;)

(I would describe those events as criminal and anti-human)

[SidelineBoy]

10:25 PM on 10/30/2010

These guys are not smart. I mean seriously, this could have been hilarious if they put more thought in to it.

[Maldives Resortworkers]

10:52 PM on 10/30/2010

true.

[jlgi11]

12:57 AM on 11/11/2010

Some people will make decisions on what resort and where they will spend their holiday based on your comments - I did.

[antranig]

01:23 PM on 10/31/2010

Different culture have different preferences for comedy, look at Japan, for instance.

This was a funny joke 3000 years ago:

“What hangs at a man’s thigh and wants to poke the hole that it’s often poked before?’ Answer: A key.”

[robivecchi]

12:50 AM on 11/01/2010

you obviously don't get that joke.

[CraigR]

10:18 PM on 10/30/2010

Just another reason why people should discard religion, which is all garbage.

[Dantee]

01:05 AM on 10/31/2010

AMEN!

[DeSwiss]

02:48 AM on 10/31/2010

Exactly.