Tag: maldives news

Indian High Commission marks International Yoga Day

The Indian High Commission organised a special yoga session at the social centre in Malé with about 300 participants this morning to mark International Yoga Day.

Indian High Commissioner to the Maldives Rajeev Shahare gifted a book on yoga to the social centre at today’s event.

According to the high commission, a special ceremony will take place at the artificial beach tonight to conclude the yoga day activities. Health minister Iruthisham Adam and foreign minister Dunya Maumoon will attend the ceremony.

Millions of people across the world participated in activities to mark International Yoga Day today. The main took place in New Delhi, India, with Narendra Modi leading a yoga session with about 35,000 participants.

UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon participated in a yoga session at New York’s time square with Indian external affairs minister Shushma Swaraj.

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Gayoom ‘unhappy’ with age limits for presidency

MPs of the ruling coalition have backed a constitutional amendment setting age limits for the presidency against the wishes of ex-president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom.

Gayoom, who heads the ruling Progressive Party of the Maldives (PPM), had sent a letter to the party’s parliamentary group leader Ahmed Nihan stating that MPs should wait on approval from the PPM executive council before supporting the amendment.

However, at an emergency meeting tonight, MPs of the PPM and its ally the Maldivian Development Alliance (MDA) decided that the parliamentary group does not require approval from the council.

The amendment – proposed by MDA MP Mohamed Ismail – proposes setting an age limit of 30 to 65 years for the presidency. The constitution currently only says a candidate must be 35 years of age.

If passed, the bill would bar Gayoom from contesting presidential polls. The former president, who is now in his early 80s, had served six terms from 1978 to 2008.

“Deeply saddened”

Minivan News has learnt that Gayoom had sent a text message to Nihan on the morning of June 9 expressing disapproval with the proposal. “I reject the proposal to set age limits for the presidency. It will only bring President Yameen into disrepute. Setting a cap on the age of a presidential candidate is not done anywhere in the world.”

Shortly after the message was sent, some 44 MPs voted to consider the amendment and sent it to a sub committee for review.

After the vote, Gayoom, in a second text message to Nihan said: “I am deeply saddened. There is no point to a man whose opinions are not considered staying on as PPM president.”

The parliamentary committee has since voted to accept the bill. It will now be sent to the parliament floor for approval.

The bill has fuelled speculation that President Abdulla Yameen plans to replace vice-president Mohamed Jameel Ahmed with tourism minister Ahmed Adeeb, who is now 33 and ineligible for the position.

Yameen is Gayoom’s half-brother.

The relationship between President Yameen and Dr Jameel is reportedly under strain. Jameel’s cousin, Mohamed Maleeh Jamal, was dismissed from the cabinet last month. The government did not provide a reason for the dismissal.

Yameen is currently in Germany in an unannounced visit and is due back on Sunday.

Three-quarters

A three- quarters majority or 64 votes will be needed to amend the constitution. The ruling coalition controls 48 seats in the 85-member house, and will need the backing of the opposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) and the Jumhooree Party (JP).

A three-quarters majority will also be needed to impeach Jameel.

JP leader Gasim Ibrahim has urged the nine JP MPs to back the amendment, although it would bar him from contesting the next presidential elections. He will be 66 in 2018.

Gasim announced last week that he will retire from politics once his five-year term as Maamigili MP expires in 2019. The tourism tycoon’s announcement comes weeks after the government slapped a US$90.4million fine on his Villa Group and froze the accounts of five of Villa Group’s subsidiary companies.

The claim was issued after the JP split from the PPM and allied with the MDP in a campaign against President Yameen’s alleged authoritarianism.

Gasim has since suspended the JP campaign and remained silent on the imprisonment of MDP leader and ex-president Mohamed Nasheed. The JP is in disarray with two senior officials facing terrorism charges.

The MDP, the religious conservative Adhaalath Party and several JP MPs are continuing the campaign for Nasheed’s release.

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Government defends Supreme Court’s HRCM ruling

A Supreme Court judgment that bars the human rights watchdog from communicating with foreign organization without oversight “clearly stresses” the commission’s independence, the Maldivian foreign ministry has said.

The 11-point guideline issued by the apex court, in a ruling that also found the a human rights assessment submitted by the watchdog to the UN unlawful, simply prescribes how the Human Rights Commission of the Maldives should operate within the law, the ministry said.

UN rights experts, the main opposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) and civil society groups have denounced the guideline as one that restricts the HRCM’s work and its right to share information freely with the UN.

But the foreign ministry said the guidelines “do no stipulate, in any specific terms, any restriction or limitation on the HRCM’s ability to submit reports to the UN or any other national or international organ in the future.”

The guideline was issued under controversial suomoto regulations that allow the Supreme Court to prosecute and pass judgment.

Point 7 of the guideline orders the commission to ensure “full cooperation” from other state institutions, while point 8 says the HRCM must communicate with foreign bodies according to procedures set by the state and through the relevant state institution.

Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, the UN high commissioner for human rights, said the verdict was “completely unacceptable.” The guideline is “yet another example of the judiciary undermining human rights protection in the Maldives,” he said.

The UN Special Rapporteurs on independence of judges and lawyers, Gabriela Knaul, and on the situation of human rights defenders, Michel Forst described the verdict as “an act of reprisal.”

The charges relate to a report the HRCM had submitted to the Universal Periodic Review, a process that studies the human rights record of all 193 UN member states with the aim of supporting and expanding the protection of human rights.

In the report, the HRCM had said the Supreme Court controlled and influenced the lower courts to the detriment of the Maldivian judiciary.

The apex court said the report was biased and undermined judicial independence and the Maldives constitution.

Defending the Supreme Court, the foreign ministry today said: “To suggest that the Supreme Court has, in this case, deliberately sought to curtail the activities of the HRCM, as a state institution appears to be a mischaracterization, in that the substance of the suomoto case is not concerned with the substance of the report prepared for the UPR, but issues concerning the compilation of that report.”

The Supreme Court judges, in fact, did take issue with the substance of the report, and also censured the HRCM for basing its assessment of the judiciary on reports written by Knaul, the International Commission of Jurists and advocacy group Transparency Maldives.

Then- Chief Justice Ahmed Faiz, in September last year, suggested the HRCM should not cite Knaul as the judiciary had rejected her 2013 report on the judiciary.

The Supreme Court verdict, delivered eight months after the charges were first pressed, comes as the parliament prepares to appoint three new members to the HRCM as the five-year terms of three members are due to expire in August and September.

President Abdulla Yameen has nominated a former ruling party MP, the wife of a current ruling party MP and a senior official at the gender ministry for the soon to be vacant seats.

The government has meanwhile hired a law firm owned by Cherie Blair, the wife of UK’s former prime minister Tony Blair, to “strengthen the legislative framework of the government.” Omnia Strategy also specializes in public relations.

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Piles of garbage left on Malé streets

Piles of garbage have been left to rot on the streets of Malé days after a housing ministry organized waste disposal program ended.

The housing ministry on June 14 announced it will pick up trash from households between 4pm and 10pm on June 15. The program was announced ahead of the Islamic month of Ramadan.

Officials said households must register to get trash cleared out.

Five days later, several houses are continuing to leave trash on Malé’s narrow and congested streets.

Housing minister Dr Mohamed Muizz has accused the opposition of deliberately thrashing the streets of Malé. On June 18, the first day of Ramadan, Muizz said the waste disposal program was over and said that the opposition has been “throwing out garbage in different areas” of the city to hinder government efforts to “keep Malé clean.”

On the same day, the housing ministry released a statement saying it had cleared trash from some 430 registered households on June 15.

“We regret to inform that the ministry will not be throwing out any of the trash being thrown out on the streets from now on.”

However, the ministry on Friday said some 50 staff had helped clear 68 truckloads of “illegal garbage.”

Malé City’s deputy mayor Shifa Mohamed said the housing ministry’s waste disposal program was poorly planned.

“First they say they will throw out the trash a day before they start the program. Two days later, they say not anymore. That is not how people’s behavior works.”

Not everyone is up-to-date on the ministry’s latest announcements, she said. “Some people took out trash they have been keeping inside their homes for more than 8 years.”

The Environment Protection Agency (EPA) has meanwhile announced that it will fine the households that have left garbage on the streets after June 15.

“Throwing out trash in this manner, is illegal under the waste management regulations enforced by the EPA,” read the statement.

Article 11 of the waste management regulation prohibit waste disposal on streets and parks.

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Nasheed’s appeal for clemency rejected

Rejecting jailed ex-president Mohamed Nasheed’s appeal for clemency, President Abdulla Yameen has urged him to first exhaust all appeal processes in his terrorism conviction.

“President Yameen responded to Nasheed’s letter with the same answer he’s always maintained – to complete all appeal processes,” said the president’s office spokesperson Ibrahim Muaz Ali.

Nasheed is serving a 13-year-jailterm on a terrorism charge relating to the arrest of a judge during his tenure. The rushed trial was widely criticized for its apparent lack of due process.

President Yameen’s letter was sent to Maafushi Jail.

Nasheed’s lawyers maintain they have been blocked from filing an appeal after the criminal court failed to release a report into case proceedings within the shortened 10-day appeal period.

The Supreme Court has removed discretionary powers granted to high court judges to accept late appeals, in the same ruling that had shortened the 90-day appeal period to 10 days, lawyers have said.

The government, however, insists Nasheed can still appeal.

Meanwhile, two judges who sentenced Nasheed were promoted to the high court last week.

The opposition leader has previously said he does not trust the Maldivian judiciary to accord him justice unless recommendations of judicial reform are fully implemented.

Nasheed’s imprisonment has triggered a political crisis with daily protests for three months, two historic mass marches, and the arrest of hundreds of protesters. Three more opposition leaders have been charged with terrorism.

In the appeal for clemency, Nasheed’s lawyers noted that the Clemency Act grants the president the discretion, on the president’s own initiative, to commute the sentence of any individual convicted of a criminal offence.

Calls for Nasheed’s release are growing. Amnesty International called Nasheed’s conviction a “travesty of justice” while the UN human rights chief said Nasheed was sentenced after a “hasty and apparently unfair trial” and noted “flagrant irregularities.”

The UN special rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers noted “serious due process violations” such as denial of the opportunity to present defence witnesses, which led her to believe “the outcome of the trial may have been pre-determined.”

The European parliament in April adopted a resolution condemning the “serious irregularities” of Nasheed’s terrorism trial and called for his immediate release.

The US secretary of state John Kerry said during a visit to Sri Lanka that Nasheed was “imprisoned without due process”.

“This is an injustice that needs to be addressed soon,” he said.

US senators John McCain and Jack Reed have urged their government to press for the release Nasheed and all other political prisoners in the Maldives.

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Supreme Court verdict against HRCM ‘an act of reprisal,’ says UN experts

The Supreme Court’s ruling which imposes several restrictions on the Maldives human rights watchdog “is an act of reprisal” and contravenes both the Maldives’ Constitution and its international human rights obligations, two UN rights experts have said.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled a report submitted by the Human Rights Commission of the Maldives (HRCM) to the UN in September last year as unlawful.

Judges set an 11-point guideline barring the commission from communicating with foreign bodies without oversight from “relevant state institutions.”

The guideline also orders the HRCM to ensure their activities are conducted with the full cooperation of other state institutions and that they “will not ruin the reputation of the Maldives.”

“The Supreme Court’s decision is purely and simply an act of reprisal against the Human Rights Commission for its legitimate cooperation with the UN human rights systems and its mechanisms,” said the UN special rapporteurs on the independence of judges and lawyers, Gabriela Knaul, and on the situation of human rights defenders, Michel Forst.

Knaul and Forst have urged the Supreme Court to reconsider its verdict.

The Supreme Court had charged the HRCM with treason under controversial suomoto regulations that allow the court to prosecute and pass judgment.

The charges related to an HRCM report to the UN’s Universal Periodic Review, in which the commission said the Supreme Court controlled and influenced the lower courts to the detriment of the Maldives judiciary.

The UPR is a process that involves a review of the human rights records of all UN member states by other states, in order to improve the situation in all countries and address violations.

During a second hearing last year, the HRCM said its observations were based on reports by Knaul, the International Commission of Jurists and advocacy NGO Transparency Maldives.

Judges censured the commission then, saying the judiciary had rejected Knaul’s 2013 report as “invalid.”

Chief Justice Abdulla Saeed on Tuesday said the HRCM report was biased and undermined judicial independence in the Maldives.

Knaul and Forst said the Supreme Court verdict “is an undue interference into the independent work of the commission and their right to share information freely with the UN.”

The verdict is at attempt to strip the HRCM of its independence and “severely limit its constitutional prerogative to promote, as well as monitor and assess observance of, human rights in the country,” they said.

The Supreme Court has contravened the Maldives constitution which enshrines the independence of the Human Rights Commission, they added.

“While the judiciary is to decide matters before it without any restrictions, improper influences, inducements, or threats, it is bound by the powers granted by the Constitution and the laws and must function in full compliance with the state’s international human rights obligations.”

Knaul and Forst said the government has not responded to an October 2014 letter they had written regarding the charges.

“We deeply regret that the government of the Maldives has failed to respond to this letter and urge the government to respond to the questions addressed in a timely manner.”

The main opposition Maldivian Democratic Party, civil society groups and lawyers have also condemned the Supreme Court’s ruling and said the court has infringed on the parliament’s mandate by “writing laws” for the HRCM.

In March last year, the court had sacked the Elections Commission’s president and vice-president when they criticized a 16-point electoral guideline issued by the court after it annulled the first round of presidential elections in September 2013.

In 2012, the Supreme Court ruled that the anti-corruption watchdog was not authorized to suspend government contracts even if they suspected major corruption.

The president of the Anti – Corruption Commission at the time said the ruling rendered the ACC powerless to stop corruption.

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Blairs take on President Yameen as client

The Maldivian government has hired a law firm owned by Cherie Blair, the wife of UK’s former prime minister Tony Blair, to “strengthen the legislative framework of the government.”

In a joint press release today, the foreign ministry and the attorney general’s office said the hiring of London based Omnia Strategy LLP “underscores the government’s commitment to strengthen democratic institutions of the State and to promote a culture of respect for human rights in the Maldives, adhering to international norms, while retaining its unique character.”

The foreign ministry declined to reveal the cost and length of the contract or the details of Omnia Strategy’s work in the Maldives.

Omnia Strategy, which has recently opened an office in Washington DC, describes itself as a “pioneering international law firm that provides strategic counsel to governments, corporates and private clients.”

In addition to providing legal counsel, the company specializes in public relations.

The firm advises the governments of oil-rich Gabon and Kazakhstan. Gabon’s president, Ali Bongo Ondimba, was elected in 2009, after his father who ruled over the country for 42 years died in 2009.

The UK’s Telegraph in March 2014 said Blair employs around 50 staff with a yearly wage bill of over US$ 3.5 million.

The firm’s appointment comes amidst growing international criticism of the Maldives government over the imprisonment of politicians, including ex-president Mohamed Nasheed. The European Union parliament and US Senators John McCain and Jack Reed have called for Nasheed’s immediate release, while Canada on  Tuesday said the deteriorating rights situation in the Maldives must be discussed at the Commonwealth’s Ministerial Action Group (CMAG).

Nasheed has also appointed high-profile international lawyers consisting of Amal Clooney, founder of Freedom Now Jared Genser and UN rights chief on counter-terrorism Ben Emmerson.

Former President Mohamed Waheed employed Baroness Scotland for legal advice concerning the Maldives’ suspension from the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG).

State auditors discovered she was paid £50,000 without signing a formal agreement in addition to a consultancy fee of £75,000 (MVR 1.81 million) agreed upon in the ToR.

Former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom employed UK PR firm Hill and Knowlton during the pro-democracy protests of the mid 2000s and reportedly paid the firm US$ 800,000 in a three year period.

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‘Hired for my looks’: HDC employee alleges sexual harassment

This article is by Farah Ahmed

A former employee at the state-owned Housing Development Corporation (HDC) has said she was subjected to sexual harassment by a senior staff who once allegedly told her she had been hired for her looks.

The employee, who had started work at the HDC’s legal department in March, said the company’s human resource manager Mirshan Ahmed had sent her inappropriate text messages and regularly commented on her clothes and her hair.

The harassment began the first week she started work.

“He once messaged me saying I should thank him for this job. He said he saw my picture on my application form and hired me because I looked so pretty.”

When she did not respond to his text messages, he allegedly threatened to muddy her work record.

“One of his messages said: “from now on I’ll only be there for you’. And when I didn’t respond, he sent a message saying ‘I’ll be bad to you only. I’ll put this on your profile’,” she told Minivan News.

“Maybe because I am a single mother, he once told me that I am a ‘buy-one-get-one-free’ deal.”

HDC deputy managing director Mohamed Shahid said the issue is under investigation and declined to comment further.

Newspapers Haveeru and Vaguthu have meanwhile said the Economic and Youth Council at the president’s office has tabled the issue and discussed penalties.

Mirshan was not available for comment at the time of going to press.

Inappropriate texts

When the female employee, who wished to remain anonymous, first complained to her colleagues about the harassment, she was advised to stay silent and warned she may lose her job.

However, other female employees soon began sharing their own experiences of harassment by Mirshan.

Some told her several had been fired before for raising the issue.

“Once, at a meeting with office staff, he told a woman who was about to sit, that she couldn’t fit in to the couch with her friend because her butt was too big – so it wasn’t just me who was being harassed. This has clearly been an on-going thing.”

She lodged a complaint with the senior management and an internal committee was set up to review her claim. But when her three-month probation expired on June 4, she was dismissed.

“I was told to go home. There were no formal letters at first. They told me my probation period was over and that I was just a replacement for someone who had to be moved to a different department – they didn’t tell me this when they employed me. Despite the harassment, I liked my job – I even told them I’d work for free.”

The committee has since decided to reinstate her job. But the HDC managing director Mohamed Simon has ignored the order, she alleged.

“When I finally got my termination letter, it said that they did not have the budget to keep an extra employee in my department and that’s why they were letting me go. I felt that I was being dismissed for personal reasons just because I actually spoke out about this,” she said.

She then sent an email from her work email account to all HDC employees with copes of her termination letter and chat-logs demonstrating Mirshan’s inappropriate comments.

HDC fired the assistant director of marketing and suspended an IT officer for “a security breach.”

Minivan News was not able to contact Simon at the time of going to press.

The parliament in May passed a law against sexual harassment, which mandates government offices to investigate complaints of workplace harassment within 60 days.

The review committee can warn, suspend or dismiss the perpetrator.

This article previously said an HDC assistant director of marketing was suspended for an alleged security breach. This is incorrect, he was dismissed.

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Maldives and Canada in diplomatic spat

Foreign minister Dunya Maumoon has accused the Canadian government of hypocrisy after it called on the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) to place a deteriorating human rights situation in the Maldives on its formal agenda.

“Canada should address the cultural genocide it is alleged to have committed against native Canadians before trying to teach other nations about values of democratic principles and human rights,” Dunya said in a statement on Tuesday.

Canada has condemned the imprisonment of ex-president Mohamed Nasheed and police crackdown on several mass protests organized by the allied opposition parties.

In a statement on Tuesday, Canada said it supported the June 12 protest in which protesters called for the release of political prisoners, an independent judiciary, and respect for freedom of expression.

Dunya said Canada’s “selective application of [democratic] principles is a highly hypocritical approach to adopt” after a Canadian truth and reconciliation commission said rules that required Canadian aboriginals to attend state funded church schools was responsible for “cultural genocide.”

Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued a historic apology in parliament in 2008, acknowledging the physical and sexual abuse that took place in the schools.

Dunya said the Maldives welcomes constructive engagement and acknowledged that democratic principles, including accountability, is an obligation on all states.

“We would encourage Canada to show good faith and engage positively with the government,” she added.

The CMAG in 2012 suspended the Maldives and placed it on the body’s formal agenda over Nasheed’s ouster in 2012. A Commonwealth inquiry later concluded that the transfer of power was constitutional, but the opposition now says the inquiry was flawed.

Dunya in March slammed unnamed foreigners for working with local opposition politicians of pushing for CMAG action against the Maldives over Nasheed’s terrorism trial.

She has previously said Canadian statements on the ongoing political crisis are “blatantly untrue.”

The Maldives is grappling with increasing international criticism over the prosecution of opposition politicians. In addition to Nasheed, ex-defence minister Mohamed Nazim is also in jail over charges of weapons smuggling.

Rights organizations have said the trials lacked due process.

Earlier this month, Dunya criticised the EU, UK, Canada and US over tweets in which diplomats raised concern over fresh terrorism charges against three more opposition leaders.

The European parliament in April adopted a resolution condemning the “serious irregularities” of Nasheed’s terrorism trial while US secretary of state John Kerry said during a visit to Sri Lanka that Nasheed was “imprisoned without due process”.

“This is an injustice that needs to be addressed soon,” he said.

Last week, US senators John McCain and Jack Reed urged their government to press for the release of all political prisoners in the Maldives.

President Abdulla Yameen has called for separate talks with the three opposition parties. The Jumhooree Party has held two meetings with government representatives, but there has been no progress with the main opposition Maldivian Democratic Party and the religious conservative Adhaalath Party.

In October 2013, then-President Mohamed Waheed wrote a letter of complaint to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, accusing Canada’s Foreign Minister John Baird of posing “several harshly worded questions… concerning domestic politics in the Maldives” during a CMAG meeting on September 27.

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