Category: News in Brief

UN human rights trust fund to help small island states

The UN Human Rights Council has established a trust fund to help small island states and Least Developed Countries to more effectively engage with and benefit from the international human rights system, the Foreign Ministry has stated, crediting the Maldives, Morocco and Mauritius for securing the fund.

The UN resolution establishing the Fund was adopted by consensus and with 111 cosponsors – a record number for a UN Human Rights Council resolution, the ministry noted in a statement.

Introducing the motion, Iruthisham Adam, Permanent Representative of the Maldives to the UN in Geneva, noted the severe financial, human and technical capacity constraints facing small island states, “constraints which prevent them from benefiting fully from the international human rights system.”

She noted that the new Trust Fund would help level the playing field and enable SIDS “to take their rightful place at the very centre of Human Rights Council debates and mechanisms”.

The fund’s activities will include fellowships and financial support for junior staff to attend three month work placements at their ministries in Geneva, travel support to help foreign ministry staff participate in UN Human Rights Council sessions, and capacity building for diplomats in international human rights law.

Daughter of Maumoon Abdul Gayoom and newly-appointed State Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dunya Maumoon, said: “We hope this new UN Trust Fund will help improve the capacity of the Maldives and other SIDS to participate fully in the international human rights system and to more effectively implement international human rights obligations.”

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President intends to remain at Hileaage

President Mohamed Waheed Hassan’s spokesperson Abbas Adil Riza has told local media that the President has no plans to move into the post’s official residence, Muleaage.

Abbas was keen to point out that the president’s reception last week was held at Mulee’aage due to pragmatic reasons concerning space.

“The President does not wish to shift his official residence. He resided at Hileaage when he was the Deputy President, and he wishes to continue to live there even as President,” Abbas told Sun Online.

Abbas is also reported as having said the President does not wish to live in a large palace whilst his people could not do the same.

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Kulhudhufushi woman found unconscious after being stabbed, suffocated

An 18 year-old woman has been attacked by a sharp object yesterday in the island of Kulhudhufushi, Haa Dhaal Atoll.

The police said that the incident took place at around 4:00pm in the evening and the victim is being treated currently in Kulhudhufushi Regional Hospital. The woman sustained injuries to her left wrist.

According local media, the woman was attacked with a box cutter and those who had attacked her had attempted to suffocate her. She was found unconscious at a rarely used small road behind her house.

The woman was reportedly attacked by masked men after she had reported the theft of a mobile phone and an iPad to police. The police at the time arrested two suspects but later released them.

The Maldives Police Service has said that the case is currently under investigation.

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Government “won’t be bullied by MDP”, Dunya tells Sunday Times

Daughter of former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom and newly-appointed State Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dunya Maumoon, has told Sri Lanka’s Sunday Times that “the government of President Waheed refuses to be bullied by the Maldivian Democratic PArty (MDP) into any particular position.”

Following meetings with the diplomatic community in Colombo, Dunya acknowledged that many were keen to know when the early election would be held.

“Most of the diplomatic community understand and believe the commitment of the government to strengthening democracy and protecting human rights, but some countries are very focused on the election date. But this is not the starting point for the dialogue process. Many other steps we have to take before that, and one, is to let parliament progress,” she told the Times.

“The MDP says they are not going to let anything proceed unless a date is given for an election. We are adamant that they don’t bully us by holding on to that election date. The government is in command. The President has considerable support. It is not right to allow a single party or a single individual to hold the country to ransom,” she said.

Gayoom would play an advisory role “behind the scenes”, she said.

“My father wants to be behind the scenes”

“My father has extended his support to President Waheed and he has offered his services in an advisory role but he wants to be behind the scenes,” Dunya said.

Former President Mohamed Nasheed maintains that the new government came to power in a coup de’tat, after he was forced to resign “under duress”.

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Escape from the Maldives: ‘This doesn’t look good, Mr President’

All hell was breaking loose down the street at the army headquarters, former advisor to ousted President Mohamed Nasheed, Paul Roberts, told MSN, recounting the last moments of Nasheed’s government.

“A couple of hundred supporters of former president Gayoom, who ruled the Maldives between 1978 and 2008, accompanied by a hundred or so police officers in full riot gear, were fighting with troops and trying to break into the HQ.

“I stood transfixed at the ongoing bedlam. A tear gas canister bounced past me down the street and dozens of young people started running towards me. I bolted into the President’s Office, behind the relative security of blast walls and armed guards.

“My colleagues who had made it into work were wandering around in a state of shock. I asked what was going on and people said there had been a police mutiny and hundreds of officers were no longer under state control. As the morning wore on, the situation became grimmer.

‘My colleague in army intelligence was looking increasingly worried. He reported that “all of the military police” and around 70 other soldiers had “switched sides” and joined the demonstrators. Most of the cabinet ministers were assembled in a second floor meeting room. There was no sign of President Nasheed.

‘The ministers were in disarray. Nobody knew what to do. My phone was going crazy, with calls from journalists and diplomats hungry for information.

“At around 11:30am, a friend at the state TV and radio broadcaster called and said police and protesters had raided the building. The journalists were locked in a room and the TV station had been taken off air. I went to the office balcony.

“A few of the President’s senior security advisers were making frantic calls to New Delhi, requesting Indian military intervention. I went up to my office and telephoned the British High Commission in Colombo, which handles Maldives’ affairs. I told them some of my colleagues were reporting that we were losing control of the country, and they were requesting foreign military intervention.”

“My phone kept ringing non-stop. One of the bodyguards was staring at me fiercely. I could see the bulge under his shirt by his hip, where I knew he kept his firearm. I slinked off to the toilet to answer my phone. It was a reporter from the New York Times. I told him the military had taken control of the President’s Office and I thought a coup was taking place. I came out of the loo and stood at the second floor balcony, near the President’s room.

“On the ground floor, the press office people were hurriedly taking a video camera into the press conference room. I saw Nasheed walking towards me, surrounded by a couple of aides and around seven people in combat fatigues.

“His eyes were bloodshot. He looked at me and smiled, as he always does. “So, Paul?” he said. I replied: “So this doesn’t look very good Mr President.”

“He slapped me on the back as he walked past into a meeting room. Within minutes, he hurriedly scribbled out a resignation letter and announced his decision on live TV. Two security people loyal to former president Gayoom, who had no role in the military or police at the time, flanked him.”

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The sea rises and democracy falls in the Maldives: Independent

Until four years ago, visitors to the Maldives were unwittingly supporting a nasty dictatorship where beatings and torture were routine, writes Joan Smith for the Independent.

“Then, in autumn 2008, the dictator, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, was turfed out in the country’s first democratic elections. The new president was my friend Mohamed Nasheed, a former political prisoner who soon began making a name for himself on the international stage.

I first got to know Anni, as he’s known, around 10 years ago. I met him in London and found him remarkably resilient for someone who had spent six years in jail, 18 months of it in solitary confinement. He is passionate about human rights, with a dry sense of humour and an apparently endless store of patience which convinced him that his Maldivian Democratic Party would one day triumph over the regime.

When he became president, Anni quickly established himself as an environmental campaigner, achieving almost rock-star status. He forced the world to recognise that the archipelago, which is only two metres above sea level, faces extinction because of global warming. His government set up a health system, pensions and the country’s first university. It struggled to modernise the judiciary, attracting criticism for some of its actions, but promoted the country as a functioning Muslim democracy. Last year, David Cameron even described Anni as his new best friend. But less than two months ago, Anni was deposed in an alleged coup.

Anni says he was forced at gunpoint to resign on television by military officers loyal to the old regime. He was placed under house arrest and the vice-president, Waheed Hassan, took over. As soon as Anni was released, he led a protest march in the capital, Male, where he was beaten up along with his party’s interim chair, Moosa Manik. According to Amnesty International, another protest march earlier this month was violently broken up by the police, who used batons and pepper spray.

Outside the Maldives, Anni’s friends have watched events unfold with horror. To begin with, the abrupt change of government didn’t receive as much attention as it deserved because it was stage-managed to look as though Anni had resigned of his own will. But a campaign to restore democracy is gathering pace: the EU has expressed concern about political unrest and the Commonwealth has called for early elections.

At the London premiere on Thursday, I was torn between enjoyment and anxiety, pleased to see Anni on the screen but worried about his safety and that of democracy campaigners in the Maldives. Earlier this month, Anni wrote an impassioned article and I don’t think I can do better than give him the final word: “The world has a duty not to sit passively by as the flame of democracy – for which Maldivians have fought so long – is snuffed out in our islands once again.”

Full story

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Parliamentary speaker raises “discord” concerns: Sun Online

Parliamentary Speaker Abdulla Shahid has claimed that discord such as the Majlis protests that saw President Mohamed Waheed Hassan initially blocked from providing his inaugural address this month has become a common occurrence since “authorities started doing things against the law.”

In an interview with the Sun Online news service, Shahid stressed that “any and all authorities” in the country were required to follow national laws in spite of whatever they wished to achieve whilst in office.

“In everything, we have lost control and things are going haywire, because steps have been taken in contravention to the dictates of the law,” he said.

“When the Executive starts violating the law, things would go wrong. As speaker of the Majlis, I am acting within the law, and I would not break the law even if the only way to achieve what I want to achieve politically is by breaking the law. The turmoil and tumult rampant in this country is the direct result of some authorities not respecting the law.”

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Education Ministry orders textbook revision to state Waheed’s presidency legitimate

The Ministry of Education has ordered schools to revise grade 7 Social Studies textbook, and add the following statement:

“President Nasheed resigned on 7 February 2012 after three years and two months in office. Hence, according to the constitution, vice-president Dr Mohamed Waheed Hassan Manik was sworn in as president.”

The opposition Maldivian Democratic Party condemned the move citing the party’s continued concerns over Waheed’s legitimacy. President Mohamed Nasheed claimed the February 7 transfer of power was a coup d’état.

International bodies, including the EU and the Commonwealth, have called for a speedy investigation into the transfer of power. The statement can be found here.

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Male’ City Council decides to give ‘Usgandu’ to MDP for three months

Male’ City Council has given the area behind Dharubaaruge to Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) to conduct political activities, after the police dismantled ‘Justice Square’ (the Tsunami Monument area) on Monday.

Deputy Mayor of the Council Ahmed Falah today confirmed to Minivan News that the land has been given to the MDP for three months to conduct political activities.

‘’We gave the land because last Monday terrorists attacked the Justice Square at the end of Lonuziyaarai street,’’ Falah claimed.

Male’ Mayor ‘Maizan’ Ali Manik said he did not wish to say anything about it because several media outlets had been misquoting him recently.

Former President Office Undersecretary Ibrahim Rasheed ‘Hoara Ibbe’ told Minivan News that tonight there will be a MDP rally at the ‘Usgandu’.

‘’MDP will be continue having meetings and conducting other political activities in any land we get and we will do it peacefully,’’ he said.

He said he regretted that police superiors have been sending low-ranking officers to attack MDP properties and persons and later blaming them, saying that their superiors did not know anything about it.

‘’They brought this day through a coup, and they are creating more violence to uphold the coup they brought,’’ he said, referring to the actions of the police.

Rasheed also said he was expecting that the suit against the security forces will be concluded next week.

The Justice Square or the tsunami monument area was also used by the MDP with the authority of the council.

However the current Attorney General Azima Shukoor declared that the land was not under the council and that it was under Housing Ministry.

A while after her statement, hundreds of police and military officers with batons and tear gas guns appeared in the area in full riot gear and ordered everyone in the area to leave immediately.

The area was then completely cleared of all trace of the MDP, from yellow flags to political graffiti on the sea wall.  Police have been monitoring the area and occasionally ordering people visiting to leave.

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