Deputy Speaker Ahmed Nazim – presiding in the absence of Speaker Abdulla Shahid – removed from the agenda a resolution submitted by Dhivehi Qaumee Party (DQP) MP Riyaz Rasheed calling for the dismissal of former Foreign Minister Dr Ahmed Shaheed from his post as UN Special Rapporteur on Iran.
Nazim said at the beginning of today’s sitting that the item could not be tabled in the agenda and apologised for having previously tabled it for debate and announced a first reading.
He noted that the UN and not the Maldivian government had appointed Dr Shaheed to the post.
The People’s Alliance Leader made the apology after Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) MP Ahmed Sameer raised a point of order to object to the resolution being accepted in August, contending that in doing so parliament had defamed Dr Shaheed.
“If someone told him that a resolution in the parliament is not going to strip him of his FIFA referee accreditation, he might understand,” Dr Shaheed told Minivan News when the resolution was first submitted by the DQP Deputy Leader.