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Government questions Nasheed’s eligibility for former president privileges

The President’s Office has raised questions over former President Mohamed Nasheed’s eligibility for constitutionally-provided immunity and privileges.

Article 128 guarantees “the highest honour, dignity, protection, financial privileges and other privileges” to any person who has served in the office of the president and stepped down without committing any offenses.

However, President Mohamed Waheed Hassan’s spokesperson Abbas Adil Riza said Nasheed’s eligibility was in question since he had not completed a full-five year term. Nasheed resigned in his fourth year of office, an act he later claimed was “under duress”.

Riza pointed to Article 3 (a) of the Former Presidents’ Immunity and Privileges Act, which affords a monthly allowance of RF 50,000 (USD 3243) for a president who has served one term, and Rf 75,000 for a president who has served two terms (USD 4864).

Riza said the clause specifies that a president has to complete a five-year term in order to be eligible for financial benefits.

But Nasheed’s former Legal Affairs Secretary Hisaan Hussein said the constitution overrides the Former Presidents’ Immunity and Privileges Act, and said Nasheed had a “right” to immunity and privileges.

Further, Article 12 of the Immunity and Privileges Act, interprets former president to be one “who stepped down after completion of term or resigned from office” without committing an unlawful act, she noted.

Even if the government’s concerns were valid, a full term is specified only with regards to financial benefits, and not in clauses relating to accommodation allowances, health care coverage, security, and travel arrangements, she said. Yet, except for the provision of security, the government had refused to extend any privileges to Nasheed, Hisaan said.

Riza said President Waheed had only arranged for Nasheed’s security “through special privileges afforded to the President.”

International bodies have expressed concerns over Nasheed’s safety, after Criminal Court Judge Abdulla Mohamed issued a court order for Nasheed’s arrest following Nasheed’s resignation on February 7.

The Maldives National Defense Forces (MNDF) had held Judge Abdulla in military detention for three weeks prior to Nasheed’s resignation. The order was never acted upon.

The Human Rights Commission of the Maldives (HRCM) summoned Nasheed on Wednesday for questioning regarding his role in Judge Abdulla’s detention.

Riza said the President’s Office has now requested legal advice from the Attorney General Azima Shukoor on providing immunity and privileges to Nasheed. “As soon as we get legal advice, we will proceed,” he said.

Minivan News was unable to contact Shukoor at time of press.

In addition to monthly financial allowances, the Former Presidents’ Immunity and Privileges Act provides for a monthly accommodation allowance up to Rf 50,000 (US$3243). The President and his/her spouse are also entitled health care coverage, security and travel assistance.

Further, if a former president wishes to conduct charitable work, the act allows for an allowance of Rf 175,000 (US$11,349) to cover overhead costs.

Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, who served as president from 1979- 2008, set up the nonprofit Maumoon Foundation in 2010. The organisation’s stated aims are to assist the poor and needy. It awarded nine scholarships for higher education abroad in 2011.

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Police charge driver in 2011 Kuredu quad-bike crash that killed British newlyweds

Police have forwarded a case against the driver of a quad-bike that crashed and killed two passengers on Kuredu Island Resort to the Prosecutor General (PG)’s office.

The recently-married British couple from West Yorkshire, Emma and Jonathan Gray, were riding on the quad-bike as passengers when it collided with a tree around 4:00am on August 6, 2011. The pair had been married for just seven days and had a six-month old son, Jake.

Police subsequently identified the driver as 23 year-old Swedish national Filip Eugen Petre, the son of a shareholder of the company that operates the resort, who was employed by the company as a trainee guest relations officer.

Petre, who was injured in the crash, was charged under section 88 (d) of the penal code, Police Sub-Inspector Hassan Haneef told Minivan News today. He confirmed that Petre was in the Maldives and was free to move about, “although his passport has been retained.”

The section cited broadly refers to “Disobedience to order authorised by Sharia or law”. Article (d) reads that “Where such disobedience resulted in the death of a person the offender shall be subjected to punishment described by Islamic Law.”

UK media reporting the charges have noted that the maximum extent of these punishments include the death penalty, however while this sentence is still given by the courts it is usually commuted to up to 25 years imprisonment and was last implemented in 1953: Hakim Didi, by firing squad, on charges of practicing black magic.

Several MPs in parliament, including Jumhoree Party (JP) MP Ibrahim Muthalib and Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) MP Ahmed Rasheed have previously submitted amendments to the relevant Clemency Act demanding that such sentences be carried out if upheld at Supreme Court level, however they have not been passed.

The prospect of Petre facing such a penalty was “shocking. It’s absolutely horrendous,” Jonathan’s mother Cath Davies told the Halifax Courier.

“We never expected there to be an outcome like this. It’s good they have dealt with it. It’s great they have investigated it properly. But I wouldn’t want it to be carried out. It’s not going to bring Jay and Emma back. It’s not going to make us feel any better. It doesn’t seem right. I just find it quite abhorrent,” she told the paper.

“It’s not like he set out to maliciously hurt or kill them. He never intended it. What happened was a tragic accident and not the result of wilful or malicious intention.”

Hearing of the charges had “brought back all the events that happened and what we have gone through since,” she said.

“We don’t want to keep revisiting these things. We want to move on and we want to remember Jay and Emma for the lovely couple they were and not always being brought back to the tragic event that ended their lives,” she said.

Following the incident in 2011, Filip’s father Lars Petre provided a statement to Minivan News in which he described the accident as “by far the most tragic event in my life, and words cannot describe how saddened we are. I and my family are deeply concerned with errors on some of the media reports and we are also deeply saddened by some accusations made at my son.”

“My son Filip Petre (23 years) was taking the two guests home, to the other side of the island, when he experienced some difficulties with the bike, and crashed headlong into a tree on the road. The crash took two lives and badly injured my son.

“He fell unconscious with the crash and woke up some time later to find the two deceased also lying on the road. He immediately called for help and worked alongside with the doctor who arrived to try and save the victims of the crash, while he was bleeding himself.

“The quad bike which my son was driving was registered and my son Filip is licensed to drive such vehicles. My son Filip and his brother Tom (who was the first to arrive at the scene of the accident with the doctor), the management and staff of Kuredhu have been cooperating with the police investigation fully, and I give every assurance that they will continue to do so in the future.

“We understand the grief of the families who lost their loved ones in the accident, and we also respect the duty of the Maldives Police Service to investigate the matter. However the fact remains that what happened on August 6 is an accident, a very tragic fatal event, which my son no anyone else had the power to change.”

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Civil Court conducts second hearing of MDP’s case against clearing of protest sites

The Civil Court has conducted a second hearing of the case presented to the court by Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) against security forces, after the police and Maldives National Defence Force (MNDF) dismantled MDP’s protest camp near the tsunami monument.

The MDP’s official website reported that the state attorney had denied the allegations made by MDP and contended that a court warrant is not required to dismantle the area.

MDP lawyer Hisan Hassan told the judge that the police could only search the area with the presence of MDP senior persons and that the MDP wanted to clarify why the area was destroyed.

Hisan also told the judge that the police did not even have a list of items they confiscated from the area.

According to local media, state attorney Ahmed Usham told the court that the area was dismantled because the protesters threw bricks at the security forces, and that the dismantling of the protest was not an action that was taken to narrow freedom of speech.

Usham also said that alcohol and items “used to conduct sexual activities” were discovered in the area, and that those were items disallowed under Islamic Sharia.

The state attorney claimed knives and sharpened iron bars and other materials were also found.

He futther alleged that MDP protesters had been attacking police officers that have went there to investigate violence that occurs in the area.

Usham claimed that people gathered in the area had been using filthy words to speak and had been encouraging violence.

He also alleged the education of children living in the area had been affected and that their rights had been violated.

The local media reported that Usham had told the judge that many crimes have been conducted in Male’ after the area was used for “planning and organising crime”, and that criminals had used the area “to flee from police”.

MDP reported that the next hearing of the case is scheduled for Sunday.

The tsunami monument area was dubbed ‘Justice Square’ by the MDP following the outside of former President Mohamed Nasheed on February 7, in what he claimed was a police and military led coup de’tat. Thousands of by MDP supporters had used the area as a camping site during the ongoing protest against the legitimacy of President Dr Mohamed Waheed’s new government.

Following a day of protests on Monday, police and army in a sudden raid on the camp ordered everyone in the area to leave without giving reason, and arrested some of the people who refused.

The police then dismantled the tents, removed all the lights, speakers, megaphones, banners, flags and the stage in the area built by the MDP, and cleared political slogans and graffiti from the sea wall.

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Women lead defense of Maldivian democracy: Huffington Post

Recent upheaval on the subject of birth control in the United States serves as a reminder of the way religion can be used as a tool to infringe on the rights of women, writes Mary Keck, Professor of English and Gender Studies at the University of Southern Indiana, for the Huffington Post.

In response to a coup d’état against their first democractically elected president on February 7, thousands of women gathered in the capital of the Republic of the Maldives. They marched in support of early, free, and fair elections. Although their stalwart protests were met by arrests and water cannons, they are undeterred. The struggle to maintain democracy in the Maldives is ongoing, and the women of this island nation know what is at stake.

The persistent activism of Maldivian women has been recognised around the globe. On Thursday, Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama stood beside Aneesa Ahmed after presenting her with the International Woman of Courage Award. Ahmed was not the first to be recognized for efforts to advance women in the Maldives. Mariya Didi was honored by Condoleeza Rice in 2007 for similar accomplishments. She was taken into police custody shortly after the coup.

Despite the courageous acts of these women, inhumane practices like flogging are still used in the Maldives mainly as a punishment for females accused of adultery. This Indian Ocean nation may have achieved democracy in 2008, but its constitution rests on an Islamic foundation, which is advantageous to many who wish to assert their fundamentalist beliefs.

A rising tide of extremism has threatened to crash over the Maldives for some time. In early December, the Adhaalath Party (a religiously-based political organization) fumed at the current government’s failure to arrest protesters advocating for freedom of religion. One of the protesters was blogger Ismail Rasheed who sustained a skull fracture when attacked during the gathering. Later that month, the parliament pushed a resolution to ban Israel’s El Al airline, which offers travel to and from the islands.

On February 7, hard-line Islamists raided the National Museum destroying Buddhist and Hindu relics and statues. This fanaticism isn’t only seen in street protests, but the use of violence in the name of Islam has seeped into the country’s political system.

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Maldives, US share climate change answer: Miscellany News

What oppositional forces in the United States, the Maldives, and other endangered countries like it must understand in order for real change to happen is the sheer risk posed by climate change and the likelihood that, without action within the next few years, humanity may not be able to avoid catastrophic economic damage and loss of life, writes Lane Kisonak for the The Miscellany News.

It has been known for some time that the government of Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed, a former human rights activist who has been called the Nelson Mandela of the Indian Ocean, has been amassing a “sovereign wealth fund” for the purchase of land in India, Sri Lanka or Australia in order to eventually resettle the Maldivian people.

But after all that, Nasheed resigned in February, likely having been forced to do so by allies of Maumoon Gayoom, the dictator Nasheed had unseated in the Maldives’ first democratic elections in 2008 after 30 damaging years in power.

Nasheed’s efforts to protect his people from global warming are, I believe, illustrative of two truths for all societies interested in climate change mitigation: first, the localized nature of climate change politics, and second, how easily it gets pushed aside in favor of other matters due to personal agendas and institutional inertia.

In the Maldives, the chief rationale for the removal of Nasheed after three years of high popular support and decisive action repairing the wounds of Gayoom’s dictatorship was the purportedly wrongful arrest of a criminal court judge on corruption charges. Political forces friendly to Gayoom found it in their interest to take advantage of this incident and align against Nasheed (BBC, “Dramatic fall for Maldives’ democratic crusader,” 02.08.12). In the end they successfully took him down, likely dealing a harsh blow to the Maldives’ climate change efforts and introducing political instability all in the interest of gaining power.

What the United States and the Maldives have in common is the potential within smaller, geographically based units to make large strides in protecting people from climate change. They additionally share institutional roadblocks to getting the job done. Sadly for the Maldivians the obstacle they face—the machinations of the party of a dictator attempting to return to power—may prove much harder to overcome. It is telling, for example, that Nasheed’s efforts were as much about working around his parliament to raise awareness abroad as they were internally focused.

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Nasheed departs to Lanka to talk about coup

Former President Mohamed Nasheed has departed to Sri Lanka on Thursday on a mission to give information to the international community on “how the Maldives government was changed in a coup” on February 7.

According to the statement released by the Nasheed’s Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), “Reeko” Moosa Manik, party chairperson, MDP Parliamentary group leader Ibrahim Mohamed “Ibu” Solih, MP Mohamed Aslam and several cabinet members of his administration will accompany him during the trip.

This is Nasheed’s first trip abroad since his controversial resignation, which the party claims was forced in an opposition backed coup that was aided by rogue security forces.

MDP expects to gain international backing on calling early elections in Maldives to unseat the new President Dr Mohamed Waheed Hassan Manik, whose legitimacy has been widely denounced by MDP supporters following the police and military-led events of February 7.

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Ten arrested on suspicion of attacking police officers

Ten suspects have been arrested on suspicion of multiple attacks on police officers, including one female officer this week, Superintendent of Police Ahmed Mohamed told reporters on Wednesday.

Mohamed noted that one male and a female officer was attacked around 11:30pm on Tuesday night while patrolling the street near Nalahiya Hotel.

The assailants struck the female officer at the rib cage and sexually assaulted her while the male officer suffered bruises to head, Mohamed said. Not soon after the incident, another policeman on duty was attacked as well, he added.

All received treatment for the injuries and was released the same night.

Meanwhile, another policeman was also attacked while at his home in Male’ on Wednesday night, Mohamed noted, adding that he escaped the attack without any injuries.

Mohamed observed that a strict investigation will be conducted into the attacks. Details on the suspects were not released.

However he condemned the attacks and added that violence against police will not be tolerated and advised the youth to refrain from such crime.

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President meets the public at Muleaage

President Dr Mohamed Waheed Hassan this morning met with members of the public at the President’s residence to celebrate his assumption of office and Presidential address to parliament.

The reception was held at the official residence of the President, Muleaage. The President currently resides in the official home of the Vice-President, Hilaaleege.

Today’s event appeared quiet with few protesters, as has been the case with many of the President’s recent public appearances. Indeed, the event was a relaxed one with hundreds waiting patiently for a few words with the President – and perhaps a photograph.

The President was accompanied by the First Lady and many prominent members of the new administration were also in attendance.

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Nasheed first president summoned before Maldives Human Rights Commission

Mohamed Nasheed has become the first Maldivian president to be summoned before the Human Rights Commission of the Maldives (HRCM), in connection to his role in the controversial detention of Criminal Court Chief Judge Abdulla Mohamed earlier this year.

Nasheed had been requested to attend a HRCM hearing filed to try and understand who was responsible for taking the decision to arrest the judge. The former president attributed the initial arrest call to his Defence Ministry, on the grounds of “protecting” national security relating to alleged ethical concerns about the judge.

Today’s summons of the former president is said to be the first of three cases filed at the HRCM involving himself. These cases all relate to potential human rights abuses allegedly carried out both by and against Nasheed during the lead up and aftermath of a controversial transfer of power that saw President Mohamed Waheed Hassan installed as his successor.

The former president has since alleged that his resignation from the presidency was performed under duress.

Nasheed’s arrival today was heralded by a few hundred supporters who gathered around the HRCM building carrying banners alleging abuse at the hands of police earlier this week. Many of those gathered waited for the former president to deliver his account to the commission. Riot police arrived briefly at the area outside the commission, but the crowd later dispersed without confrontation.

The arrest of Judge Abdulla Mohamed itself occurred on January 16 in relation to a police request. The judges whereabouts were not revealed until January 18 however, leading to international condemnation of Nasheed as well as domestic criticism reflected in ongoing protests over several weeks that observers later suggested were partly linked to his eventual downfall on February 7.

HRCM spokesperson Jeehan Mahmoud told Minivan News that while additional cases relating to the former president would be focused on alleged human rights abuses against him after the build up and transfer of power, today’s hearing related to specifically identifying the party who placed the order to arrest the judge.

Jeehan added that the HRCM had previously unsuccessfully attempted to  summon former defence and home minsters, as well as senior police officials who had served under Nasheed during the time the arrest decision was taken.  However, today’s  move was taken to request that the former president explain what had occurred himself.

“If these ministers and [police] representatives would have attended [the HRCM hearings], I think thing would have been a lot clearer,” she said. “We wanted to collect more responses on this as it hasn’t been clear where the order [to arrest the judge] had came from.”

Possible outcome

The commission spokesperson said that the group had not yet decided on what methods it would look to take to readdress any potential abuses of the judge’s human rights.  Therefore she said it was too early to say whether this could include filing a case against any of the decison makers involved at the Prosecutor General’s Office.

Malé MP Imthiyaz Fahmy, who formed part of nasheed’s legal team today, told Minivan News that the former president gave testimony alleging that the decision to arrest the judge was related to a number of possible misdemeanour’s that had been attributed to him dating back several years.

In November, the national court watchdog, the Judicial Service Commission (JSC), was ordered to cease an investigation into Judge Abdulla Mohamed by the civil Court under an action he himself instigated.

Amidst developments such as these, Fahmy claimed that Nasheed used his testimony to claim that he had been informed by the Home Ministry that the judge had allegedly posed a “national threat” – prompting his eventual detention.

The MDP MP added that Nasheed then claimed that the Home Ministry had communicated with the Defence Ministry on the situation, which in turn led to the decision to arrest the judge after bodies like the Judicial Service Commission has raised alleged concerns over his ethical conduct.

“I was told Abdulla Mohamed would not comply with the police’s summons to investigate allegations [against him],” Nasheed later stated at a press conference following the meeting with the HRCM.

“The Home Minister wrote to the Defense Minister that Abdulla Mohamed’s presence in the courts was a threat to national security. And to take necessary steps. And that step, the isolation of Abdulla Mohamed, was what the [Defense] Ministry deemed necessary.”

Nasheed claimed additionally that he had sent representatives to Girifushi to check on Judge Abdulla Mohamed’s well-being during his detention, alongside allowing the HRCM to visit the judge.

Fahmy alleged that it was ironic that Nasheed, a leader he said who had openly discouraged the use of torture and actively campaigned against human rights abuses, had become the country’s first former leader to have been called in front of the HRCM.

However, HRCM spokesperson Jeehan said that Nasheed would be called back for two additional cases – expected to be sat at the same time – that would look into alleged abuses of human rights against the former president. The first case would be focused on the events of February 6 and February 7 this year, the two dates surrounding Nasheed’s “resignation” from office, a decision later claimed to have been part of a “coup d’etat” against him.

The third and final case would then concern any claims of human rights abuses against Mohamed Nasheed by police on February 8, the day after he tendered his presidency ended.

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