Outcry over erosion of rule of law in Maldives
A former Maldives attorney general has called on the Law Society to lead a mission to the country to assess the erosion of the rule of law, as judges are assaulted, courts suspended, and citizens’ rights ‘crushed under foot’, he claimed.
Dr Hassan Saeed told the Society last week that elected president Mohamed Nasheed, a former political prisoner once dubbed the Maldives’ ‘Nelson Mandela’, was dismantling the 2008 constitution and had set up his own ‘public courts’ to replace independent courts.
Saeed said citizens’ rights were being ‘crushed under foot’ and called on the Law Society to lead an independent assessment of the situation. Society president Linda Lee urged the Maldives authorities to ‘uphold and protect key constitutional principles’.
A spokesman for the Maldives’ London High Commission denied the allegations and said the 2008 constitution protected citizens’ rights.
Comments
spokesman for the Maldives’
spokesman for the Maldives’ London High Commission will definitely deny the allegation as the high commissioner is a sister of Difference minister Ameen Faisal who is the most close minister of President Nasheed.
Visit Maldives and experience what has been happening here, ask from the British tourists who had happened to visit Male' during the critical days, sure they would see, military tanks on the roads, army deployed to arrest opposition leaders despite we have a police force.
One should also note that President Nasheed's Party (MDP) had opened a citizens court, like that of Hitler's citizen's court under the name "Rayyithunge Court" (which means citizen's court). MDP parliamentary group leader carried out lessens of the court in public, claiming that he is the chief justice of the court, and made ruling to gather near the houses of judges and not to let then sleep at night. Audio and Videos of these sessions had been recorded and broadcasted on State television and radio. MDP activists, after each session gathered near the houses of judges, MPs, opposition leaders and stormed their house, broken glass of the windows.
how can we say that there is rule of law when when President Nasheed does the following:
1. send tanks with military at mid night to abduct political parties heads?
2. hold citizens without charge and court order as he long as he pleases?
3. drags the chief justice and justices of the high court to military headquarters middle of the night?
4. openly defies court orders?
5. discuses judicial conduct in the cabinet and drags sitting judges to police?
6. send his ministers on the street and outside the capital hill to protest?
7. monopolizes state media and turns it as his propaganda tool?
8. sends riot police to arrest and drag his predecessor Gayyoom to police headquarters?
9. send thugs and activists to harass private radio and television stations?
10. sends thugs and activists to harass independent institutions like the civil service commission?
11. Publicly announce that he will defy a law legislature has passed and he has assented to?
12. appoint and administer oath of office for his cabinet before the Parliament consents to?
13. sell state assets when the Parliament has asked not to do and has even passed law to that effect?
14. sit in the police headquarters and issues commands to arrest politicians?
15. wiretap politicians, businessmen and citizens who do not support him and play them on state media?
16. drop charges when suspected drug dealers and criminal sign for his party?
Why Nasheed is not a Maldives Obama but a Maldives Mugabe and an
An article written by the President’s political appointee Ms Farahnaz Faisal calling President Nasheed the Maldives, “Obama” written in the Guardian received an onslaught of angry rebuttals by the Maldivian people still getting head hunted on a daily basis by the militias that are put in the streets by the President and his party MDP. It was only yesterday some members of the Judiciary outside their residences, were attacked by the paramilitary mob recruited and sponsored by the President. The ground reality is the Maldivian people are living in fear of the government sponsored mobs that have been engaging in violent attacks against opposition supporters, members of the Judiciary and the Parliament not only now but since the new government came to power.
One of the comments stated,
“It’s a shame that you are referring Dictator Mohamed Nasheed as the Obama of Asia. Mr. Nasheed fits very well the indication of president Obama during his speech in Cairo ” some leaders come to power in the name of democracy but once they are in power they turn to be dictators”.
You have also given gross misinformation in your article.
Referring to Hon. Gasim Ibrahim you referred to him as the finance minister of Gayoom. Please use his last post in government which is Nasheed’s government first Home Minister and coalition partner of Mr. Nasheed to become the president.
Also you referred Dr. Hassan Saeed as the former attorney general. But Dr. Hassan is the first Advisor to President Mr. Nasheed and coalition partner who helped Nasheed to come to power. Dr. Hassan is also the Attorney general who said that multi party system can be introduced. To his advice only former president Gayoom allowed militia party system in the country.
When you speak corruption it’s a big laughing stock. Because Ms. Farah Naz you yourself is appointed as the high commissioner in London because you lived there in UK and is relative of Mr. Nasheed and belong to so called royal family of Maldives. So its natural when you are appointed you get accommodation on expensive villas in London free and paid fat salaries. You are paid huge amounts of money from peoples pocket and so far you have failed to carry out any tangible work in there.
Also you should have told British people the way Nasheed is ruling this country like Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe.
1. He attacked civil servants of the country
2. Detained opposition leaders
3. No Jobs for non members of his party
4. Attack of judiciary and established a street court
5. Bribes opposition MPs and gave brand new BMW to Feydhoo constituency MP to join his party
6. Sold Telecommunication Company below market price
7. Tried to lease Male’ airport to Indian GRM without parliament approval below market price and not transparent bidding system
8. Gave islands to develop resorts to his close friends
9. Forced his cabinet to resign and go for street violence to intimidate MPs and opposition
And many more.
Definitely he is the New Mugabe of Asia.”
While Ms Faisal was trying to paint a rosy picture of Mohamed Nasheed as the President the anguish that people currently feel and the truth about how Mohamed Nasheed came to power and how he is behaving since; is revealed in a comment that stated, “Definitely Mr. Mohamed Nasheed of Kenereege is the Mugabe of Asia.
He came to power in disguise of portraying as the person who loves democracy.
But as soon as he managed to get the top post with the help of Gasim Ibrahim, Dr. Hassan Saeed and Dr. Waheed he chased all of them away except Waheed because he is the wise president.
Mr. Nasheed only got 15 percent in the first round of presidential election. Total he got for the first round is around 25% that Nasheed’s 15% and Waheed’s 10%.
However, during the second round Dr. Hassan Saeed’s & Aims percentage added to 54%. He accepted and finger printed a contract to give 30%of the government to Jumhoori Party as a coalition partner. But Later refused to give. He also appointed Dr. Hassan as the advisor to president but never listened to his advice so he was forced to resign. Mr. Nasheed fired Dhiyana Saeed his first attorney general because she gave a legal opinion that he didn’t like. He fired communication minister Dr. Jameel because he said Nasheed’s government should learn how to govern without parliamentary majority during parliamentary election.
Mr. Nasheed is cannot digest decisions of opposition controlled parliament. So now he wants to deface and undermine parliament of Maldives. State media has been hijacked.
People of Maldives live in fear now. Because his activists are creating chaos in the streets and using police and military of Maldives against the constitution.
So to cut short Nasheed never respected democracy he just used it to come to power.
If there is an election in Maldives today only 20% of people will vote for him. We are fed up of his lies“.
Similarly another commentator stated,
Dear Ms Faisal,
Your article would have been better received were you not indebted to President Nasheed for appointing you to your current position as Maldivian High Commissioner to the UK, entirely without merit and not based on any prior service to your country. Indeed, being one of the highest-remunerated beneficiaries in President Nasheed’s nepotism-filled administration (to name just one, I understand the current Minister of Defence is a member of your family?), it is entirely understandable that you should praise Nasheed to the high heavens.
However, your inherent partiality aside, your article suffers from glaring misrepresentations:
- there were no journalists or prisoners of conscience imprisoned to be released by President Nasheed; could you name a single one? On the other hand, kindly refer to news reports of the period which described the immense public outcry when President Nasheed summarily pardoned convicted drug offenders and other violent criminals onto the streets of the capital; perhaps these are the prisoners of conscience you were referring to?
- there was only one jail in the Maldives when President Nasheed took office; please note that it was this regime that opened the country’s second jail in the farthest-flung corner of the Maldives in an island whose former inhabitants had been relocated by the previous government due to the island being continually isolated from the rest of the atoll even given the slightest inclement weather. No information has yet been released as to who are the prisoners (enemy combatants, perhaps?) who have been banished to our very own Chateau d’If. Seeing as you are occupied in London, it might have escaped your notice that the Human Rights Commission of the Maldives has also condemned the prison conditions as inhumane?
- President Nasheed’s “modest bungalow” is the former palace of the Sultans of the Maldives; the secretive “essential refurbishments” required to prepare the 18-room mansion (not including a 12-room annexe) for the First Couple’s arrival is currently the subject of corruption investigations by the independent Anti-Corruption Commission.
- re your assertion of dismantling corrupt networks, presumably this sterling effort included the summary dissolution of the elected local development committees on each inhabited island (190 in all) and their replacement with loyal party members as committees appointed by the Home Minister and “councillors” appointed by President Nasheed himself? Not to mention the expropriation, almost entirely always under threat of police intervention, of all communal assets, power distribution machinery & equipment, and the seizing of an average per island of a couple of hundred of thousands of Maldivian Rufiyaa (in some well-publicised cases, the amount was in excess of two million rufiyaa) in community development funds? This despite the fact that some island communities obtained local magistrates’ rulings that all forcibly seized assets were to be returned immediately, as well as a landmark Civil Court ruling that the elected committees were dissolved unlawfully?
- would your references to “breaking up the patronage system and freeing people for independent lives” also include the dismissal (under the guise of cost-cutting) of thousands of civil servants and slashing the pay packets of the remainder to near-impoverishment levels (with arbitrary reductions of up to one-half of the salaries of the most lowly civil servants) whilst simultaneously appointing cronies to ministerial-level “political posts” at ludicrously-high wages? For example, most of the civil servants dismissed “to save the Treasury money” earned less than Mrf 4,000 per month on average; on the other hand, each of the more than six hundred new political appointees earns approximately MRf 15,000 per month. Do the math, Ms Faisal. No corruption, cronyism or nepotism here, obviously.
- Much as President Nasheed would like to take credit, the state pension introduced under the Pensions Act 2008 to replace the earlier pensions schemes, introduced by President Gayoom in the early Eighties under the name of “Provident Funds” and long-service pensions, was itself promulgated into law under President Gayoom. A grace period of 2 years (from May 2008 till May 2010) was provided to allow for both public and private sectors to implement this, which is why you’re only hearing about it now.
- you fail to reveal that the MPs being hounded by the regime were first arrested on charges of attempting to overthrow the government; when these charges were ridiculed, they were replaced by corruption allegations based upon, as the police stated to the court, a letter sent by the President’s Office. Leave aside the fact that the Supreme Court ruled that the police had acted unconstitutionally; nothing must be allowed to get in the way of massaging the message.
The real truth about President Nasheed is he is the first Democratically elected leader who declared himself a Dictator on the eve of the series of unconstitutional arrests he carried out; by stating that he is the Head of the Military and the Maldives Police Force (both made independent under the new Constitution adopted in 2008) and he will use whatever force necessary to conduct those arrests. After deploying the armoured military with full gear into the streets, he kept on arresting people in fact exceeding the, “200″ mark in the current political crisis alone. After arresting MP’s belonging to the opposition parties, he stated that he will do anything he wants and will act unconstitutionally ( his exact words were, “outside the Constitution”) if he feels that it is in his best interest.
Appointing family members, close friends like Ms Faisal and brother Ameen Faisal, as Defence Minister, uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces, brother in laws, sister in laws, convicted murders like Abdulla Shahid is the nepotic norm adopted by President Nasheed.
The armed force or the Military in our term, the Police mobilised by him to crackdown on opposition supporters, violent mob of supporters simultaneously attacking the people working for the independent pillars of democracy, the Judiciary and the Parliament as well as on opposition supporters is a dictatorial attack implemented for the first time by a President and that President is Nasheed.
A true Obama will not carry out arbitrary arrests, neither will bring sedition charges against his political opponents and definitely will not exercise retaliation based on suspicions. Carrying out arbitrary arrests of opposition politicians and supporters is not a feature of a democrat, but that of a Dictator.
People in the Maldives their rights are violated and all over the country under President Nasheed people fear for their lives due to the violent mob predominantly consisting of violent prisoners released by the President conducting daily attacks on individuals deemed as non-supporters as can be seen by the violent daily attacks that are still carried out against members of the Judiciary and the Parliament.
Civilian deaths in the prison, deaths of people taken in for questioning have been making headlines in the local newspapers like never before in the country’s history. The exact number of victims are not clear as only few cases comes out in the media that is heavily controlled by the President with a creation of a Media control Board and appointment of family members to head over it.
To do what he wants President Nasheed issues decrees as he pleases, including the creation of the infamous Presidential Commission by decree to investigate and bring corruption charges against former government officials belonging to President Maumoon’s tenure as well as in conducting the arrest of Leader of PA Yamin and Leader of JP Gasim.
The real truth is we are in a political crises because contradictory to Ms Faisal’s Nasheed Maldives Obama claim, he has become more irrational, erratic and frantic than the like of Dictators such as Banda and Mugabe. His outspoken claims made in the Broadcasting media which he controls and in his party meetings on the eve of getting his mob to march and attack politicians in their homes, or on the eve of most arrests he make are evidence to this.
A catalogue of broadcasts made by him through the state controlled Radio Maldives and the TV Maldives are evidence to how he repeatedly declares himself a Dictator, which perhaps are not heard in the High Commission headed by Ms Faisal.
When it comes to the Environment Nasheed has become a comical figure all over the world and within Maldives the people deem it as a rather dire PR stunt to hold on to power and rejuvenate the long lost popularity. His notorious acts as a Dictator spanning out of control means attempts in this regard remain futile and unconvincing
The truth is Mohamed Nasheed is the Maldives Mugabe who knowingly and sometimes unknowingly declares himself a dictator. If there are people like Ms Faisal around him trying to hide him from his own reality, his short volatile temper, outrageous narcissism, self adulation will worsen making him the Asian Hitler .
Reference:http://browse.guardian.co.uk/search?search=Maldives&sitesearch-radio=guardian
Dear Jonathan Rayner and
Dear Jonathan Rayner and members of law society. Before you write any article about Maldives kindly please evaluate the current situation here in our country. We all know who is Dr. Hassan saeed... we all still remember his brutual rules under Gayyom dictatorship. we can still remember there is no freedom on those days.. no media.. no freedom of expression.. nothing... this is true..... Mr. Jonathan and members of law society can visit here Maldives and check court documents and goverment documents to prove how brutual man Dr hassan saeed is... he is real danger for our democracy.. Hence dont write any article regarding maldives unless right information ...
I am amazed that Hassan Saeed
I am amazed that Hassan Saeed and Gaumee Party actually supported the fight for change in 2008. It is evident now that its not actual change he wanted, but only to become the President of Maldives.
It is a shame that the ‘Law Society’ of UK is aiding this politician who wants to protect other corrupt politicians and few corrupt judges.