Former Foreign Minister of the Maldives Dr Ahmed Shaheed has been appointed UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Iran, a high-profile post in the UN system.
The 47 Member States of the Human Rights Council unanimously endorsed the appointment of Dr Shaheed after he was selected from a list of candidates by the President of the Council.
Current Minister of Foreign Affairs Ahmed Naseem said that only five years ago “it would not have been inconceivable for the United Nations to establish a Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Maldives, such was the former government’s poor human rights record.
“Today, a Maldivian has been elected Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran, one of the most important human rights posts in the international system. This is, I think, indicative of the enormous strides we have taken over recent years and the high regard in which we are now held by the international community”.
Special Rapporteurs are endorsed by the Council to investigate countries and themes around the world, such as freedom of expression. Candidates are usually figures with a record of experience dealing with the international community and other nation states.
In a statement, the Foreign Ministry noted that Dr Shaheed’s appointment was the first-time a Maldivian had ever been appointed to hold a UN Special Rapporteur mandate.
The decision to establish a Special Rapporteur on Iran was made in 2011 after the deterioration of human rights in the country following the 2009 election, in which the Iranian government was found by the UN to have used excessive force, arbitrary arrests and detentions, unfair trials and “possible torture and ill-treatment of opposition activists in relation to post-election unrest in 2009.”
The UN called on Iran to cooperate with Dr Shaheed and permit his access to the country, as well as provide necessary information. He will present his findings to the UN General Assembly in September 2011, and produce a full report on the situation for the UN Human Rights Council in March 2012.
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Maurice Copithorne, the last person to hold the title of UN rapporteur on human rights in Iran (1995-2002), on the challenging task the new appointee will face.
Ex-UN Special Rapporteur On Iran Cites 'Psychological' Effect Of Investigations
http://is.gd/eAnmFI
Thanks.
Good riddance of this dr. janaza. Anni, Excellent work! Just get rid of one after the other. These people will never be loyal to you. The will do to you what they did to Gayoom. eventually they will dump you and they will all make themselves look perfectly clean. The cunning b@#$%*d!
I am sure DRP, ZDRP would not want this to happen. How about spending another 3 weeks of precious parliament-time, to try and get him expelled from this job as well.
dude. that's like awesome. good luck and stuff
Congratulations to Dr. Shaheed. This is a proud moment for Maldives.
Dr Shaheed would have to be very brave to be impartial on Iran, because his paymasters at UN wants bias!
Congrats Dr Shaheed! Wish you all the best.
So the lobbies have paid their puppet well.
Nobody has deserted Annie. She will get her gun and drive the bullet point-blank into the heart of this country.
Congratulations Doc! I am very happy to hear about your appointment. I wish you all the best.
I believe Dr. Shaheed could be good at it. Khomeini and the Iranian Mullah's who started the revolution, because they believed in Ijtihad for years even when Sunni's had 'closed the gates on it,' studied Greek and ancient philosophy, and their Islam, when discussed academically, was advanced philosophically (as ironic as that is because for all its repressive stupidity it involved highly developed concepts. Dr. Shaheed understands all these philosophies, and because he understands the essence of Islam and interprets it in a philosphical, non-literalist way himself, he would know how to converse about Islam at a very high level, and MAY be useful in beginning dialogue about issues such as freedom of expression, rights of Women in Islam etc with the Iranians. I am not naive enough to believe he can make a change, but starting conversation in a tactful, refined manner may be the starting point. There are liberal Shiite scholars in Iran, many of them.
Lets not forget, Dr. Shaheed spoke out against the flogging of women in Maldives, and had ennough Islamic Ilm (knowledge) to argue that to whip a woman was NOT justifiable through Islamic texts, as they had to be applied in context etc... (as opposed to literalism, modern Ulema ask, what was the reason behind an Amr, are we fulfilling the reason, the meaning of an Ayat or Sunnah by applying it literally today? Because of his understanding of politics, he would be sympathetic to the Sunni, Shiaa divide as well.
His character had been questioned in the past, but I believe if Dr. Shaheed is very careful, yet firm, he can get some important dialogue going.
How soon we forget. Was it not Dr. Shaheed who tried to hide the truth of Hussein Solahs death in custody during the time he was Maumoons Foreign Minister. Lets hope he does better for Iran than he did for the Maldivian people.
http://hussainsolah.blogspot.com/2007/04/mdp-condemns-foreign-minister-shaheeds.html
“Maldives Foreign Minister Dr. Ahmed Shaheed made a statement to the Maldives and international media from 1715hrs on 21 April that the preliminary results of the Mr. Solah’s post-mortem ruled out violence and establishes death by drowning,” the statement read. “However, the preliminary report was at the time yet to be opened in the presence of the family representatives and the Maldives Police. The Maldivian Democratic Party
Iran, are you ready for Professor Shaheed? Brace for the firework, the media headlines.
Congratulations to those who put Shaheed into this fix.
Heartiest Congratulations Professor Shaheed!
This is indeed a true honor for the Maldives and an incredible personal achievement for yourself. It is a moment for all Maldivians to celebrate with joy.
The fact that Dr. Shaheed's nomination was approved unanimously by the Council members illustrates the high regard and respect for Dr. Shaheed from the great powers of the world.
For the USA, European Union,Russia, China, India, Japan etc. to back him for this "hot seat" of today's geo-politics, demonstrates that amongst us Maldivians there do exist some very high calibre Statesmen of the very best kind.
Let us not forget that Dr. Shaheed is a highly educated academic and a tireless fighter for freedom and democracy through out his career for which he was recognized and conferred "The Muslim Democrat of the Year Award" by Washington-based think-tank, Centre for the Study of Islam and Democracy in 2009.
More recently in 2010, Dr. Shaheed was bestowed an honorary Professorship by the University of Kosovo.
Dr. Shaheed will require all his well honed skills to carry out this task which will be watched by the international community with utmost scrutiny.
I wish you every success in your mission!
Gosh...A guy who helped whitewash human rights abuse now a UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights.
To those pathetic critics of Dr. Shaheed who have commented above.
Your jealous and utterly stupid remarks only shows how shallow and low down some of you are.
This is a moment for even those in the opposition to recognize an achievement by a fellow Maldivian in the International Stage making us all proud. It is a moment for us to salute a man who has been trusted to carry out one of the most sensitive missions in today's international affairs. We should be happy and have the decency to congratulate the man even if you may not agree with his politics.
But tell you what? Dr. Shaheed will continue to make us all proud and no amount of your cheap pot shots will bring down this great Statesman!
It will be a very difficult task for Dr Shaheed. Iranian Mullahs can be very nasty if bad publicity is given to the country. If Dr Shaheed is too honest in reporting, the chance of Iran cutting off diplomatic relation with Maldives is also there.
Dr. Shaheed, this is well deserved!
there is no match to his academic calibre in the Maldives at all....
he is a champion of women's rights in the maldives and human rights in general...this is all evident for anyone who care to examine the success of the maldivian agenda in the international fora.
Acceding to all the human rights conventions and sailing thru the maldives Review at the Human Rightc Council...not to mention the fact that he was the one who put the maldives in the running for the Human Right Council...just a few points to reflect that he has always been a human rights defender!
Yumi,
Care to explain what happened to his human rights agenda in August 2004?
WoW! a person from a country which could not even protect the rights of an animal.
We wish good luck to him. Thanks for UN for its attention!
We are really suffering bad decades and need these kind of supports.
We HR activissts are ready to help him.
Dear Ilyas Ahmed, or should I call you Dr Shaheed?
I am guessing that you must be the real deal - Dr Shaheed himself trying to defend. Or perhaps his wife 🙂
Shame!
Poor Iranians ..... Dr.Shaheed is so not upto this..His masters in Israeli PMs office wants him to be impartial...what a joke?
Dr Shaheed and Ahmed Naseem are two of the most corrupted people in this government. Dr Shaheed will write his report in favor of the most money offered to him. We have seen this in the past.
@Mariyam..Don't foeget Reecko and Maria as well.
Congratulations Dr.Shaheed!
We are so proud of you!!!
Iran should be bombed to the stone ages. Make your report as favorable as possible to Israel. Obama needs a "GO" sign from the UN. After all he has been wrongly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, he needs to justify his actions to the international community. This is called "Good cop, Bad cop routine". George W bush was the bad one, Obama is the Good cop.And they are doing the very same thing in different way.
My Advice to Dr. Shaheed is, fasten your seatbelt and brace yourself for a tough ride.
Dr, professor, spin doctor, make up artist, double talkative jive, Janus Faced all these titles really fit in to the shoes of Ahmed Shaheed of Maldives.
His Excellency Dr Ahmed Shaheed,
Congratulations! This is wonderful to have you as UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Iran, a high-profile post in the UN system.
Being a former member of a Muslim government of a Muslim country make us to suppose you capable of understanding both Iranian government and its multinational population. We have here complex problems. Our government is heir of racism from former racist kingdom and this ill-thinking of the former government and its education system has produced racism against non-Fars ethnics who are 70% of Iran population and present government has added a kind holiness to all policies so far as nobody can’t protest anything because The governor is WALI and He is talking instead of Allah and any object against him is considered as objecting against Allah and could be sentenced to death as MOHARIB. For this there is no difference between government and so-called prodemocracy opposition because even those claiming democracy want it just for a FARS-centered nationality which deny any human right for ethnic groups and sometimes criticizes the anti-democracy government for not repressing ethnic groups as enough as they think is necessary to eliminate ethnic identities. Now the issue of human right in Iran is something more than just an outrage against election fraud. As you saw ethnic groups didn’t intervene in election riots and this was because Iranian Government and its oppositions are two wings of racism.
Oh well Kudey will not be going to IRAN after all.
Ir'an is a Shia country who ought to be annhialated off the face of the earth for their shirk.
Question is why Maldives or a Maldivian was chosen for this post?
Lets hope that Maldives was not "forced" to accept this post by the USA who is after Iran for sometime now. Maldives should not play puppet to USA tunes for bringing "resolutions" against Iran as and when America likes.