President Nasheed in contempt of Court over case of abducted Judge Abdulla Mohamed

Police Brutality in Maldives

The heavy handed approach of Nasheed is showing signs of leaks and cracks in his government.  On Sunday, the Foreign Minister supposedly asked the United Nations to mediate in the ongoing standoff with the opposition that is making its way into the second week.  Ahmed Naseem wrote to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights the notoriously popular Navanethem (Navi) Pillay, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights asking for a team of senior foreign jurists to mediate.

In his letter Mr. Naseem wrote, “The opposition protests by roughly 300 people have resulted in minor violence and scores of arrests, and follow a series of similar struggles over the past year which has begun to feature hardline Islamic rhetoric”.  It remains for the UNHCHR team to see and witness the protests of “roughly 300 people” or a gathering in their thousands, congregating and protesting peacefully every night tirelessly wowing to continue their struggle until President Nasheed toe the line.

Chief Judge Abdulla Mohamed 

The Criminal Court Chief Judge Abdulla Mohamed’s summary abduction by the Military on orders from President Nasheed sparked the nationwide protests.  However, it was the cumulative result of anger and discontent of the public over the government’s aristocratic type rule and its refusal to accommodate the demands of the December 24^th 2011 peaceful demonstration, which also demanded an apology from Navi Pillay for her blasphemous speech addressed to the Maldivian Parliament in 2011. 

Navi Pillay UNHCHR

Navi Pillay is a catalyst to the current situation; it was her little speech to the parliament that sparked this situation which has now spun out of control and is causing much pain, suffering and hurting both the government and people. It is unlikely that a positive outcome will result from any mediation which will fall short of an apology from Pillay.  The more concerning question that awaits an answer is if the UN can mediate a legitimate and amicable solution on the case of Nasheed government’s contempt of Court and its standoff with the Supreme Court Ruling. Mr. Nasheed is in contempt of the Supreme Court ruling to release Justice Abdulla Mohamed.

A comment by an anonymous reader of this blog makes me wonder if “Nasheed's actions actually have the features of a well-designed agenda”. Perhaps it does, the reader states, “It all started with the UN Human Rights Commissioner, Navi Pillay's little speech to the parliament - It has now again gone back to her with a request from the Dictator to involve what Foreign Minister Naseem calls ‘UN legal expertise’”. Will the opposition yield to anything short of an apology?

Scary comments from the public include, “The bells continue to ring an unless Maldivian opposition leadership take heed of these warning bells, depose the Dictator and drum out the entire regime, the word ISLAM will be totally erased from the Maldivian constitution.” Could that be true? It remains to be seen if Mr. Nasheed can muster sufficient votes in parliament pass such a bill.

President Nasheed Commander -in-Chief

Anger over abusive statements made by the President towards Islam and mockery towards Prophet Mohamed is at an all-time high among both the population in Male and more so in the Islands.  Nasheed, who has been President for little over 3 years, has virtually destroyed the constitutional government of the country. By the end his five years in office he would be leaving behind a legacy of greed, corruption and debt that Maldivians would struggle for decades to overcome. Mohamed Nasheed has begun a dirty and vicious campaign to gain control of all the three powers of Government in Maldives with the help of a revolutionary group of military commanders in the MNDF.

Like his predecessor, Nasheed enjoys to pause for a photograph in Uniform as Commander -in-Chief.