Former Maldivian president Mohamed Nasheed, who defied an island-confining arrest issued by a magistrate, was arrested on Monday morning from a southern island, where he was conducting a mass contact programme.
Life has come a full circle for the Amnesty International Prisoner of Conscience in hardly half a decade: he was among the longest-serving political prisoners released ahead of the 2008 elections. He won the first-ever democratically held presidential elections with the help of a combined opposition. Less than four years hence, he was out of office, and back under the custody of the Maldivian National Defence Forces (MNDF), to stand trial for the “unlawful” arrest of a judge during his last days in power.
Speaking to The Hindu from the southern island of Fares-Maathoda, Hamid Abdul Ghafoor, Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) spokesperson for international affairs, said that masked personnel of the MNDF descended on island early on Monday morning, and arrested the former president. “They just dragged him away to their mother boat. They came in about 5 boats to the island,” he said.
He and his party leadership were in urgent consultations over the next steps to the adopted. “We are proceeding towards Male. We have to decide on our next steps soon,” he added.
Just early on Monday morning, the party that Mr. Nasheed belongs to, the MDP, said that it was “deeply disturbed and worried by the court warrant issued to arrest the party’s presidential candidate and the Maldives’ first democratically elected president, Mohamed Nasheed, and produce him to a widely disputed court.”
“The court order was issued by the Hulhumale’ Magistrate Court on October 7, while Mr. Nasheed had appealed the legality of the Hulhumale’ Magistrate Court with the High Court on Sunday and the appeal process has not yet been exhausted,” the party said.
The MDP urged the international community, and Maldivian development partners to immediately engage in dialogue with President Waheed Hassan to maintain “maximum restraint” and to not do anything that would disrupt peace and stability of the country.
“We are currently on presidential campaign trail by boats in the southern atolls. This trip has been organised for months and immediately after the dates of the trip were announced, the courts decided to summon our candidate to a court that is unlawfully established. Leading experts and lawyers have questioned the legitimacy of this court” said Mr. Hamid said.
“This is not about justice. This is a politically motivated trial to invalidate our candidate’s candidacy and to deliberately disrupt the MDP’s presidential campaign. We are in the largest voting centres and it is very clear who will win the elections. They can only win the elections by invalidating his candidacy. We are deeply disturbed by the developing situation. We do not believe he will have a fair trial,” he added.
Keywords: Mohamed Nasheed, Maldives politics
We are wondering why the foreign media gives so much credit to former
President Nasheed whilst his credibility rate has gone down so much in
Maldives. Nasheed has been elected by mistake. He is not a man for
democracy. Perhaps he has a democratic words to attract foreign media
but on the contrary he is a tyrant. Why foreigners do not understand
certain phrases Nasheed had emphatically expressed which highly
contradicts democratic rules and orders in other countries." If my
party members ask for a favour from me I would fulfill their needs but
other party members will get nothing other than a painful lesson from
me" Which democratic leader has announced it openly on TV other than
Nasheed? Such a leader cannot be elected in Maldives again.Foreign
countries are already one sided. There are so many foreign countries
who busily monitoring the situation in Maldives. I would like to ask
them to offer Nasheed a job in these countries since he is not our man
for the next election.
Nasheed has done so much good for Maldives. After decades of corrupt dictatorship,
he was elected when Maldives finally opened up to democracy.
Then he tried to rein in the few elite who were taking everything, and keeping the majority who were poor down.
Then these same elite, with the help of the Maldivian army did a coup and kicked out the president - against the constitution and replaced him with the lower level corrupt politicians.
Both US and India acknowledged and gave verbal support for the coup. Shame on them.
Now Nasheed has returned and is continuing his struggle for Maldivian people's freedom. The good decent people of the world wish him well.
Nasheed can't go above the law. He has support and back all culprits. In
his presidency he released half of the prison population and as a result
their is a soaring number of crimes which are impeding every aspects of
ordinary Maldivian. Nasheed has many serious charges against him which
he needs to be answered and I wonder why Nasheed is not dare to face the
justice.
As per constitution of Maldives, every one will be treated equally under Maldives Constitution.. Hamid will give so many false statement.. What is happening today is all about his past disobedient & breaking law..
this is good that he has been arrested for the unlawful things he has done in his 3 yrs presidential term. During his time he fully engaged to bring up things for his party members and run the country as per their decisions. No matter what now he is a just a normal individual like anyone else. He has to be prosecuted for what he has done to Criminal Court Judge. Let not talk about his candidacy disruption. It seems like if he not there, there is no Maldives or what. Or there is no other candidate in MDP? So let the Maldivian government do their job and Pres. Nasheed to prove his innocence. The we will believe he is innocent. So far as per the facts we have seen in different occasions he has broken the written law and challenged it which he cannot do.
No ones is above the law. The court issued the order after Nasheed failed to appear for the first hearing of the case which had been originally scheduled for last Monday and rescheduled again for yesterday as Nasheed had skipped court and departed on a campaign trip to the south of the Maldives. After the first scheduled hearing was boycotted by Nasheed, Hulhumale Court had ordered the Police to produce him in court for yesterday's hearing.
This is a very biased article. Please try to bring the story from two
sides.. His arrest is constitutional. Court send him chits on two
occasions and he challenged it.
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