MUDDY WATERS India asked to help Maldives
‘SEND ENVOY, BACKED BY MILITARY’
An exiled former president of the Maldives urged India yesterday to send an envoy backed by the military to release political detainees after the government of the Indian Ocean archipelago imposed a state of emergency and arrested two senior judges.
The Maldives plunged into crisis last week after the Supreme Court delivered a shock ruling, quashing terrorism convictions against nine leading opposition figures, including the country’s exiled, first democratically elected president, Mohamed Nasheed.
Having defied the court ruling, President Abdulla Yameen ordered security forces to seize control of the court and arrest the chief justice and another judge.
Nasheed, who was granted asylum by Britain after he was allowed to leave jail for medical treatment abroad in 2016, sought Indian intervention.
“On behalf of Maldivian people we humbly request: India to send envoy, backed by its military, to release judges & pol. detainees... We request a physical presence,” Nasheed, who is in Colombo, said in a Twitter post. He also urged the US to block financial transactions of Yameen’s government.
Since Yameen took power in 2013, his government has faced repeated questions over freedom of speech, the detention of opponents and the independence of the judiciary.
His office said he was acting in the interest of public safety in imposing an emergency for 15 days.
“The president has been compelled to declare a state of emergency due to the risk currently posed to national security,” the statement issued on Monday said.
The Maldives have assumed greater importance after China began building political and economic ties as part of its so-called “String of Pearls” strategy to build a network of ports in the Indian Ocean. –