Former President Mohamed Nasheed has spoken of the close relationship between climate change, human rights, and democracy during separate addresses to the Danish parliament and the University of Copenhagen this week.
Discussing concerns over political instability in the Maldives that have been raised by NGOs such as Amnesty Intentional since President Dr Mohamed Waheed came to power last year, Nasheed accused the current government of reversing “hard won freedoms” and awarding “Islamic extremists” with cabinet positions.
He also claimed that the prospect of the Maldives becoming a “radicalised, authoritarian stronghold” would have negative connotations well beyond the country’s borders.
“In many ways, [extremists] set the tone of Government communications and they are busy trying to indoctrinate the people with a misguided version of Islam,” Nasheed said.
The office of President Waheed – who entered into office through a controversial transfer of power on February 7, 2012 – today dismissed Nasheed allegations that Islamic extremists were serving in the government.
“I urge Mr Nasheed to stop spreading lies to promote his political agenda. I call on him to engage professionally,” President’s Office Media Secretary Masood Imad said via SMS today.
Senior government figures have earlier this year criticised some of the recent findings published about the Maldives by Amnesty International, accusing the group of publishing reports without conducting research.
During his visit to the Danish capital, Nasheed also met with current and former Danish Ministers, high-level officials, supporters, as well as gave an interview to local tv news show DR2 Dagen.
Nasheed, who is a globally recognised high-profile advocate for climate justice, expounded on how he believed environmental issues, human rights, and political stability are increasingly intertwined.
“The fight against climate change is a human rights issue and the way we respond to it will shape not just our environment, but also geopolitical reality – for generations to come,” he stated while speaking at the University of Copenhagen yesterday (April 16).
“Bad energy policy is not just polluting our planet, it is polluting our politics, warping international relations.”
“New balance of power”
Nasheed gave a lecture to the University of Copenhagen highlighting the “corrupting influence of fossil fuels” on energy politics and how this has clashed with the newly-founded Maldivian democracy.
“The politics of energy is polluting international relations, just as it pollutes the air, casting a shadow over much of the world and holding back clean energy,” he stated.
“It is the invisible force holding nations in thrall to dictators, causing conflicts and repressing human rights, a suffocating inertia that holds back democracy and development.”
Nasheed addressed how “the fight for fossil fuel resources has shaped the world” for over a century, but now “the time has come for a reformation in energy politics; one that values human rights above mineral rights.”
While fossil fuels have “driven companies to corruption, governments to repression, and nations to war, the new resources – solar, wind, waves – are much more widely distributed…there are no ‘resource fields’ to fight over.”
Clean energy is about a significant shift in the established geopolitical order, a shuffling of the deck in the great game, not just about rewiring the world economy, Nasheed explained.
“Carbon emissions”
“If we turn our backs on corrupting influence of fossil fuels, if we reject the polluting in pursuit of the beautiful, we can protect the world around us. We can deliver sustainable economic growth. And we can do so whilst putting development and democracy first,” he stated.
“For the first time since the Industrial Revolution, it is now technologically, economically and politically feasible for people to get their energy sustainably.
Nasheed said it was important that climate change not be underplayed as “some abstract risk,” claiming that the lives and freedoms of people all over the world were threatened if no action was taken to address environmental concerns meaningfully.
“I know it is possible, because we had a plan to do it in the Maldives. A fully costed plan, approved by the World Bank, to go carbon neutral. The only reason we didn’t was because we were rudely interrupted by a coup!” Nasheed exclaimed.
“Radicalised, authoritarian stronghold”
Nasheed also gave a speech to the Danish Parliament that reiterated similar environmental themes, but with an emphasis on the Maldives’ 2008 democratic transition.
A year prior to the Copenhagen Accords – the first time that big emitters from the developed and the developing world all agreed to cut carbon emissions – the Maldives had transitioned from former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom’s 30-year authoritarian rule to democracy, Nasheed explained.
“Positive changes such as ‘Basic freedoms’ – freedoms which been repressed for generations – began to take hold,” said Nasheed.
“The Maldives was being hailed by NGOs as a model of liberal, Islamic democracy,” he added.
Nasheed provided the Danish parliament with a brief narrative account of the police and military mutiny on February 7, 2012, which he alleged was controlled by “Gayoom, and his allies, alongside Islamic extremists keen to re-establish the old order.”
“[Gayoom’s] former dictatorship organised the coup because they could see the edifice of their economic and political power crumbling,” he explained. “It was crumbling because Maldivians had rejected authoritarianism, rejected feudalism and largely rejected Islamic extremism.”
Nasheed also added that the prospect of the Maldives becoming a “radicalised, authoritarian stronghold” was a threat for many people.
“It is a threat to the hundreds of thousands of Europeans who holiday there every year. It is a threat to neighbouring democracies, such as India. And it is a threat to the stability of the wider Indian Ocean, through which 40% of world trade passes,” he said.
“A democratic Maldives is not only your friend; it is also the best guarantor of your interests,” he emphasised.
Free and fair elections
Domestically, Nasheed is presently being tried in the Hulhumale’ Magistrate Court over the controversial detention of Chief Judge of the Criminal Court Abdulla Mohamed in January 2012.
However, Nasheed has maintained that the trial, presently on hold pending a High Court decision on the legitimacy of judges appointed to hear the former president’s case, is politically motivated to try and prevent free and fair elections from occurring this September.
He highlighted recent conclusions of both local and international experts into the present status of the country’s judiciary to support his claims.
“The United Nations Special Rapporteur says the court is bias and politicised. This view is shared by Amnesty International and the UN Human Rights Committee,” he said.
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Another whole load of bollocks bluffed out by Nasheed, the man behing most of the terrorist activities going on in this country. The bloody man is nothing but a vandalist and an infidel supported by Europe.
Nasheed is right on this one.
Prospect? The islanders are already radicalised minions of corrupt mullahs. Bombing parks, burning flags, vandalising museums, holding Shariah rallies, calling for amputations, floggings and stonings, going to jihad in Pakistan and dying there. LOL. And the government has always sided with the mullahs. How is it not radicalised? For a good example, you can all witness the Islamists on full show tomorrow afternoon, as the local pedophiles, dementors and unwashed Islamists hold a protest to implement the barbaric Shariah. If this country hasn't been radicalised, there'd be counter-protests and denounciations of this Arab colonisation - but since there isn't we can all agree that Maldives is another terrorist breeding state of Saudi Arabia.
Dear Yasir. How wrong you are. I have visited your beautiful country at many occasions, as I have sons working there. I have seen the deterioration in the country since the February coup last year. I was present yesterday in Copenhagen and listened to former president Nasheed's very fair account of the situation and about the threat from climate change. He was very visionary and fair. I hope for the future of the Maldives that he will be reelected in September
the gullible Danes will believe anything if the speech contains words like terrorism, islam, bombing... They don't need to know anything else. Just brainwashed robots believing the biased mass media.
From an islamic standpoint Nasheed can be tried for treason for falsely trying to defame the religion and insult the Creator and His messenger. All the signs of Nifaq manifests with him. A true muslim will love to see islam flourish, will love to associate with ulema, will protect the religion from ideological attacks.
I very much admire this man.
His policies towards islam were brilliant. It is through him maldives will get rid of islam. He will make islam in maldives a thing in the past.
I am of the opinion that Nasheed should not engage 'professionally' with the present governemnt. I do understand that compromise is an important part of leadership, but why should Nasheed or anyone who has the best interest of the people of the Maldives come to terms with a governemnt that is based on self interest and brute force?
Is this the way leaders from other countries talk when ever they go out of their countries? I even wrote a comment on another newswebsite, asking what would Nasheed talk this time. As someone who voted Nasheed last time, I feel ashamed.
yasir, i dont think he is even supported by Europe. But perhaps he want to appear he is supporting European way of thinking. But Europeans are clever also. Perhaps they can figure out this guy is not the kind of guy to be trusted.
Before he go out of the country, he will say he is going to attend a conference or something. Why cant he say he is leaving to defame Maldives, tell the truth and leave. The kind of people he is picturing are probably in his party and demonstrating on behalf of him. Just look at the photos. Ya he want everyone's support and at the same time redicule his own men when he is abroad, probably thinking not all Maldivians will even know English or cant interpret what he says.
Minivan News!!! To be fair you should have quoted my full SMS.
Is Nasheed the only saviour of the Maldives. Nasheed has committed certain acts during is three year period in office and if found guilty he will be unable to compete in the up coming elections. Does this mean the elections will be unfair. I do not think so. MDP can nominate a person to compete in the elections be in Reeko Moosa, Maria, Ibra or any other. Nasheed is just one man among many who share the same ideology. If Nasheed is not there then someone else should be there to carry on the ideology. Just because he cannot compete does not make the elections unfair. Nasheed has all the ingredients of a cult leader.
A lot of the things that he says appear to be true. But this is coming from the man as he wants to win back the top job later this year. Here is a man who had no qualms about sleeping with the radical islamists like shaikhfareed when he was president. He gave a total disregard to the judiciary. He got army to put a pad lock on the supreme court. He got his entire cabinet to resign over some petty squabbles. this man has a forked tongue. A capricious mind. I feel so ashamed of having voted him in 2008.
Nasheed is the man who had polluted our political environment.
Nasheed had done nothing to protect the our fragile ecosystem during his time and in fact his mismanaged it.
Thilafushi where most of the wastes get dumped are being mismanaged completely and were drag into a disaster zone.
No one in the country can prove or show anything that he had done to improve the environment in Maldives except he had gone out spoken in the international media for his now fame.
Same thing happened with Gayyoom and Gayyoom was very first man to raise the voice about the environmental issue in the international forum and Nasheed use the same dictatorial tactics as Gayyoom.
If Nasheed was really concern about the environment problem he would had done the following .
1. Manage the Thilafushi disposal properly.
2. Install proper incinerators in Thilafuhsi
3. Made arrangements to recycles plastic bags and bottle.
4. Give an incentive for these who recycles plastic bottle.
These are few basic that he could have done
Nasheed is earning good points in the international arena for climate change. Also smart to link climate change, human rights and democracy. Whoever wrote his speech did a damn good job!
@Søren Nielsen on Thu, 18th Apr 2013 2:55 AM.
Likes of @Yasir on Thu, 18th Apr 2013 12:40 AM, @Kuribee on Thu, 18th Apr 2013 11:16 AM and so on would be best, if forgotten!
even if maumoon said this i would agree with it.
them billy goats are running free in our nation, they are even forcing women to dress as garbage bags cause we men cant control our sexual urges?
not only that, even girls as young as 4years are being sexualized by making them wearing this hijab.
these people are an infection, a plague thats spreading in our country. people like imran are the devils advocate who is calling out for violence and murder of those who dont agree with them.
this country has been a muslim country for 100's of years, and still try to deny we were Buddhist at one point in time.
i support nasheed on this stand, and will back him up on this cause.
NO TO WAHABIEES. NO TO FLOATING GARBAGE BAGS THAT INSULTS US MEN BY SUGGESTING WE ARE NOT IN CONTROL OF OUR SEXUAL URGES.
TO HELL WITH YOU!!
@Kuribee
Not bad, not bad, at all, Kurimbee. keep going with the spin.
The MDP should put you on their payroll for the fantastic work you are doing to remind us just why we elected President Nasheed.
And why we should elect him again for President.
Thank you, Kurimbee for reminding us why we must do whatever we can to liberate ourselves from the tyranny of those who have held our nation to ransom with their greed and hunger for power.
Denmark has got the extremists and they are people who had drawn nasty picture of Prophet Mohamed and tried to defame.
So Nasheed link with Denmark is understood .
The extremists in Maldives are working with the extremist Nasheed and this is the reality.
@Kuribee
Nasheed for President! YES!
Imran is not devils advocate , he is devil incarnate.
Great speech, President Nasheed!!
Kuribee, Human being
There is no shame in being dumb. Under normal circumstances there is also no problem in expressing your dumb ass views.
But this is not a normal circumstance. Believe me, a corrupt theocracy is your worst nightmare multiplied by a hundred fold.
Please keep out of politics, stop posting this drivel, it not only serves as an embarrassment, it is also dangerous, because you convert other retards to your flawed convictions.
I could explain this better if you two had the cognitive ability to understand.
Anni is brilliant man from 21st century; he is the man for Maldives now. Don’t let your belief to override your common sense, If you simply think for a moment with bit of knowledge about natural history it is not difficult to come up with conclusion that religions are human made outdated crazy stuff who did not know anything about how the world functions. It is proven that human being has gone through many evolutionary stages starting from African Savanna some 200,000 year ago, there was no connection with any god during the long history of human evolution. God has completely forgotten about his super creation and all of sudden popped in about 3000 years ago and started interfering with human species. Wasn’t this something strange and questionable? So if you use a bit common sense, you don’t need to care about any religion anymore because it was all manmade stuff. We are good not because of any religion, we are good because, that good behavior is in our nature created by survival mechanism. I you go robbing people, you will get killed, if you go rape someone else kid people will kill you even if there is no laws.
Anni is a man with vision and he has good quality you need to have in good human being. I hope Dhivehistanies will side step a bit from religious craziness and will give opportunity for democracy. The only candidate who respects human rights and democracy is Anni, the rest are ignorant fishermen.
Who is a terrorist? This former President Nasheed has charged and found guilty child abusers, drunks and women beaters in party leadership and also his parliament members. Radicalism? Nasheed you must be joking! While your members go burning the country and also destroying public property. This man is a sick man¬!
Dear all countryman,
I thin k you are forgetting something here.
It’s not Nasheed who changed brought democracy in Maldives, its not Nasheed who think and act to save Maldives environment, it’s not Nasheed who strengthen Maldives economy.
It’s you, all of my country men.
He just happened to be at the right place at the right time to take all the credit, and he did it very well.
YOU (all countrymen) said enough to Gayoom and made the change possible. Unfortunately Nasheed is addicted by the power that WE (all countrymen) gave him and he has clearly destroyed everything.
Our name in international society, our economy, our environment, our country and most of all our people.
All my countrymen, when we vote, think twice before you cast your vote. As you have already proven, you have the power to change, and change it what we need for better or worse.
someone
@Kuribee
Since you mentioned Denmark trying to defame Islam, it reminds me of a comment on Haveeru which said something along the lines of 'Nasheed is going to Denmark to work with them to wipe out Islam because Denmark is the second top country trying to wipe Islam out after Israel'. This is the sort of thinking years and years of brainwashing and inbreeding can lead to. In the developed world, criticizing or satire of religions is not seen as a reason to behead somebody, or blow up embassies. Humans don't do that. Inbred neanderthals do though.
And also, since some comments said that Nasheed is out to defame Maldives and Islam.....would it still be defamation if what he's saying is true? However, I'm not really fond of Nasheed. After all, it was him who gave Adhaalath this much power.
wives. Yes owe all know why Nasheed is so close with Denmark? His entire speech is based is radical Islam which he think will be the way to get his voice heard there.
People who are the visits of the cult leader Nasheed, they will not see anything wrong done by him.
It is the fact that Nasheed had become the environmental champion only after he 2009 and before that he never spoke of about.
During his time in office, all what he had done is talk about the issue for his personal gain and there is nothing he had done at the country to preserve it.
all what he is talking is bull s**t
Ahhaahhha, seyku Nasheed at it again but this time his views about energy and fossil fuel corrupting nations (mainly muslim nations)are correct.
Fossil fuel was a god given gift to our muslim nations but we had to disagree on it, got too lazy to produce a fruitful future from it's use while the power hungry Americans and Russia along with Europe fought battles within themselves on who will control the oil fields of the middle east.
For gods sake the first thing the American military did in the Iraq war was to seal off the oil reserves, protect them and then later shot at civilians. No wonder Manning became a security concern for them!Watch videos from Wikileaks??!!you dumb heads!
No wonder Shell, BP, Exxon and the lot rule the world now also! These barbarians even started wars in the middle east because some of the good leaders wanted to nationalize the oil.
Just watch THE SECRET OF THE SEVEN SISTERS DOCUMENTARY to understand what really happened!
I bet the western media will never talk about this and then go on polluting the world so that they gain, develop and the poor nations like us, suffer!!
@ Wives and concubines,
And who is Wives and concubines calling Neanderthals at when her/his peaceful nations like America(who can't even pass a gun control bill to assure it's citizens safety),Europe fought for decades over who would control the wealth of the Earth.
I bet they will never become neanderthals because they are wealthy now, will they???eh!!
But you can never deny the fact that the world wars were fought by the oh so peaceful and rich countries now in the expense of millions of poor people. They would never have gotten rich if our muslim nations didn't cooperate with them and extended a hand!
And lets not forget about the Falkland islands which actually belonged to native Argentinians but was ripped off by the Britons because it has oil reserves!!
What about the Chagos islands where it's poor people were evicted by the British to build US bases??!!
What about Palestine which was occupied by Israel with the help of UN!(Actually the Arabs and Jews lived quite closely before the world wars)
The Palestinian people can't even go to international courts for human rights abuse and torture because they are not recognized by the international community! Aren't they humans!But then again when they fight back they become terrorists, neanderthals ho hum, blah blah!!!
I guess Wives and concubines peaceful countries would never have gone on a psychopathic rampage colonizing most of our muslim nations and Asia, killed thousands of people, ripped their wealth and put Indian diamonds on an 80 year old queens crown,eh!!
After all they are rich and peaceful now!!
And for all those homosexuals and evolved fishermans,
I guess religions are gullible enough to go after things like these!
Jeremy Irons: Gay marriage might allow 'fathers to marry their son'
and thinking of how people love money, one can think hmmmmmm!!??
Humans created religion= religion creates all wars
=ultimately brings us to blaming humans eh, your views are dumb!!
Cherry picking parts of the evolution theory is pretty crazy when Darwin was responsible for bringing in communism and marxism, no!!
It would have been pretty interesting if he could have brought something like this!
Is There Life After Death? Scientist Says The Soul Survives After The Heart Stops Beating
Robert Lanza MD,
Is Death an Illusion? Evidence Suggests Death Isn’t the End
Shimy, very well said.
This victims from Fili Nasheed disease will never see anything wrong with the guy and no matter what he says .
These cult followers think that Fili Nasheed is the GOD given gift to the nations and consider the guy as GOD now.
kill all the extremists and this country should be well.
Shimy- if somebody has scientific credential and tells the night is an illusion will you believe it? Death is not illusion it is reality that you see every day in a physical world, death is end of life period. If you think in death your consciousness survives and travels to other dimension, it will be horrible experience to die with illusion of hell and punishment that will torment your consciousness eternally in world of spirits.
We don’t support Nasheed, we support his idea of democracy and freedom which is universal. Don’t race against time. Time changes the condition, if you want stick to the past your condition will never change. Religion, nationalism, prayers, superstition is part of the past, future holds, rationalism, facts, globalization, freedom and human rights. These are not colonialist creation; it is human aspiration in the pursuit of happiness, you are locked confusing yourself about colonialism in the past which in irrelevant today because colonialist took advantage from people like you in the past who were intellectually deficient. People who are with Anni are youths who are vibrant, violent with aspiration of freedom so that the colonialist cannot enslave us anymore.
@runda
Agree with most of what your ideals there except for the fact that you havent mentioned choice. If someone chooses to hold onto religion,nationalism or prayers, its their choice. And freedom goes both ways, stupidity cant be fixed by taunting an provoking. Let them come to their own terms.
And as for religion and nationalism, it is important to a lot of people because our ancestors shed blood, lost lives trying to preserve it. And whether its globalization and what not, its a choice and it should be left upto the individual person to decide. And collectively saying Maldivians want this or that would be a horrible lie, because different people obviously want different things, and two sides of the spectrum are denying the needs of the other.
Respect should be mutual regardless of ideology. and taunting, harsh criticism and insults, calling them backward and neanderthal wont take them anywhere, and they will get more and more angrier, by them means near or more than half the population
True, there is nothing sacred about death. Life is sacred, love for life - is sacred.
We can not realize our most Glorious Self through greed, or through materialistic ambition, or through the pursuit of power, through pride, through vengeance or through hate. Our greatness is realized through love for life, and the stronger that love, the more realized we are. Love is awakened through.
The stronger the love, the more realized the giver. There is a love which is stroner than death, and this is The Divine. One inspired by such love realizes the highest possible peak of their own grandeur - the grandeur of their Eternal Self, in the giving of ALL that they have for the welfare of another. Allthough one may die or suffering in this love - we call it self sacrifice, it is never the DEATH which is the Divine part, it is the love which is stronger than death which is Divine.
This is a very different concept of self sacrifice to the concept of self sacrifice used by Islamic extremists. One is the ultimate expression of the celebration of life - an expression of life which is so sacred it is greater than death - ! The other is a celebration of death, and it is extremely heartbreaking, when amped up hope is so rejected and frustrated, that it leads the despairing into a celebration of death instead of life.
A simplistic understanding of the Western Development paradigm is ALSO partly to blame, because it presents materialistic success and superficial positive thinking as the measure of success, happiness, and achievement. This leads to greed, inhumanity, frustration, resent, hatred. When one fails to SUCCEED in this materialistic context, having abandoned a culture which sees an important meaning in suffering and loss as well as in victory and pleasure, they have NOTHING, and become vulnerable to the culture of DEATH the extremists promote!