At 08:42 AM, on the 22nd of April 2017 Maldivian journalist, blogger, satirist, and human rights activist Yameen Rasheed tweeted an emoji of a red balloon 🎈.

Just a day later, on the 23rd of April 2017, he would be brutally stabbed to death in the stairwell of his home, just inside the front door.

On the 24th of April, friends, family, journalists, and others released red balloons into the air to honour his memory and to call for justice.

Social media users, especially on twitter, began to add the 🎈 emoji to their profiles in remembrance.

With his unmatched sense of humour and fiery wit, Yameen Rasheed touched the lives of many; including many queer and irreligious Maldivians.

Yameen Rasheed was a rare kind of Maldivian He was an open ally to all

Through his writing and his tweets, he endlessly advocated for secularism, for the Maldives to legalise freedom of conscience, and to recognise and respect the rights of LGBTQ+ Dhivehin.

All while mocking the religious fanatics that were constantly threatening him with murder.

All the while tirelessly advocating for Ahmed Rilwan AKA @moyameehaa to be found. Rilwan had been abducted outside his home on the 8th of August 2014. In 2017, when Yameen Rasheed was murdered, it was unclear whether Ahmed Rilwan had been killed or was still being held hostage. People wanted to keep that hope alive. Later investigations would allege that Rilwan had been killed the same night he had been abducted.

One of these fanatics, “Siru”, a failed artist who runs multiple hate speech pages on Facebook and twitter, posted an image of a red balloon to his facebook page.

It was captioned:

“Red balloon cult ge meehun secularism ah thaaeedhu kuraakan fennaane eve”

which translates to:

“Thou shall witness the people of the red balloon cult supporting secularism”

1. Red balloon cult meehun varah foari ebahuri dho ekamaa [Translation: Red balloon cult people sure do have a lot of enthusiasm for that huh]
2. Dhogu hedhun OK dho.. Red balloon cult ga [Translation: It’s okay to lie huh. In the Red Balloon cult]
3. Thee red balloon cult golaeh heyyey [Translation: are you one of those red balloon cult guys?]
4. Thee red red balloon cult golaehtha [Translation: are you a red balloon cult guy?]

Soon “the red balloon cult” became a term used by Maldivians to refer to people they perceived as laadheenee or irreligious.

Editors note: There are too many tweets to translate with our current capacity and still post these articles in a timely manner, so for now there will be some that are still in dhivehi. We endeavour to eventually have translations of each one available.

By 2019, sophisticated propaganda had begun to emerge. Snippets of Yameen Rasheed’s writings were translated to dhivehi and to create infographics warning people about the dangers of his “balloon cult”.

By 2019 the term “red balloon cult” or “balloon cult” had become synonymous with calling someone laadheenee or irreligious.

And so it continues to the present day.

In a bizarre twist of fate, the people that hated Yameen Rasheed the most have unintentionally made him immortal.

May the red balloon cult live on forever 🎈