Mohamed Nasheed

Mohamed Nasheed, GCSK (Dhivehi: މުހައްމަދު ނަޝީދު; born 17 May 1967) is a Maldivian Politician, who served as the fourth President of the Maldives from 2008 to 2012. He was the first democratically elected President of the Maldives and one of the founders of the Maldivian Democratic Party.

Nasheed was born in Malé, Maldives, to a middle-class family. He attended Majeediyya School in Maldives between 1971 and 1981. He continued his secondary school education at Overseas School of Colombo in Sri Lanka from 1981 to 1982 until he completed his GCE O Levels. In August 1982 he moved to England, where he completed his higher secondary education at Dauntsey's School in Wiltshire. Straight after his GCE A Levels, Nasheed moved north to Liverpool, where he spent the next three years reading in maritime studies at Liverpool Polytechnic (later Liverpool John Moores University), graduating in 1989.

Nasheed was held in prison for an article in the political magazine Sangu, published in 1991, alleging the government had rigged the 1989 General election. He was named an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience in 1991. He has stated that he was tortured while in detention, including being chained to a chair outside for 12 days and forced to eat food containing crushed glass.

He was later alleged by the government, to have withheld information about a bombing plot. On 8 April 1992, he was sentenced to three years in prison on that charge. He was released in June 1993, then re-arrested in 1994 and 1995. In 1996 he was sentenced to two years imprisonment for an article he had written about the 1993 and 1994 Maldivian elections, and was again designated a prisoner of conscience. In all, he was arrested more than twenty times during Gayoom's rule, missing the births of both of his daughters. During his time in jail, he spent significant amounts of time studying, producing three books on Maldivian history.

In 1999, he was elected as a Member of Parliament representing Malé. However, he was forced to leave office on a theft charge that the BBC and other international media sources described as politically motivated.

In September 2003 Nasheed requested that a Doctor view the body of Hassan Evan Naseem, a 19-year-old prisoner who had died in Maafushi Jail while serving a term for drug possession. The subsequent investigation revealed that Naseem had been tortured to death. This revelation, and the violent suppression of the prison riot that followed, sparked the anti-government protests of the 2003 Maldives civil unrest, leading to the first State of Emergency in Maldivian history and a "turning point" in its history.

On 12 August 2005 Nasheed was arrested again when he was sitting in the center of the Republican Square, with supporters of MDP, to mark the second anniversary of the Black Friday. His arrest provoked civil unrest in Malé and some other Atolls. After his arrest, acting Government Spokesman Mohamed Hussain Shareef told reporters that Nasheed had been detained for "his own safety." However, on 22 August 2005, the state announced that Nasheed was to be charged with terrorism under the Terrorism Act.

Following the election, Nasheed and Waheed were sworn in as the President and Vice President of the Maldives on 11 November 2008 in a special session of the People's Majlis at Dharubaaruge.

In September 2009 at the global premiere of the film The Age of Stupid, Nasheed was presented with a "Not Stupid" Award for his efforts to tackle climate change and for the Maldives' announcement to become the first carbon-neutral country in the world. In the same month, Time magazine named Nasheed to its "Leaders & Visionaries" category within its annual list of "Heroes of the Environment".

On Earth Day 2010 Nasheed was awarded the United Nations' Champions of the Earth Award. He received it at a gala event in Seoul, Republic of Korea, in conjunction with the B4E Business for the Environment Global Summit. According to a press release by the United Nations Environment Programme, the award was in recognition of Nasheed's being "an articulate voice for the vulnerable and the poor facing the challenges of global warming and also a Politician who is showcasing to the rest of the world how a transition to climate neutrality can be achieved and how all nations, no matter how big or how small, can contribute". That year, he was also named by Foreign Policy magazine in its list of top global thinkers.

In a 2011 interview with The Guardian, British Prime Minister David Cameron described Nasheed as 'my new best friend' and said that he, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Nicolas Sarkozy and John Key would be the five world Leaders Cameron would invite on his stag weekend.

On 28 June 2012, Nasheed received the James Lawson Award from the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict at Tufts University in Massachusetts, US. The award was given to "recognize his leadership in opposing the long dictatorial regime that lasted before his election and to recognize his opposition to the armed coup earlier this year which forced him from power, and his renewed nonviolent action on behalf of restoring genuine democracy in his country".

Nasheed was reported to have taken refuge in the Indian High Commission office in Malé in February 2013 after a Maldivian court issued an arrest warrant against him and ordered the police to detain him. On March 2013, he was arrested on the charges of abuse of the office but was released a day later. Numerous stops and starts to his trial followed.

On 30 August 2014, Nasheed was elected as the President of the Maldivian Democratic Party.

In February 2015, Nasheed was arrested again and ordered to stand on trial for his decision to arrest Abdulla Mohamed in 2012 while he was the President. On 13 March 2015, Nasheed was sentenced to thirteen years in Maafushi Prison for abducting Abdulla Mohamed. He was charged under the Anti-Terrorism Act of Maldives. The three-judge bench unanimously found him guilty of ordering the arrest of Abdulla Mohamed in January 2012, when he held the office of the President. The ruling came four days after Nasheed's lawyers quit in protest against what they called was a biased trial aimed at destroying his political career. He was originally cleared of the charge but a few days later, the prosecutor general had him re-charged and arrested under tough anti-terror laws. The court rejected an objection from Nasheed’s lawyers that two of the judges were not suitable to hear the case because they had testified against Nasheed at a police inquiry on the judge’s arrest. The court also dismissed four witnesses produced by Nasheed’s lawyers before they even testified, saying they were not strong enough witnesses. Nasheed had earlier been charged with abuse of power but prosecutors last month filed more serious charges under the country’s terrorism law. The trial was completed after 10 hearings over 23 days.

On 16 January 2016, Nasheed, following foreign pressure, was granted permission to leave for the U.K. by the Maldivian Government to undergo a spinal surgery. According to a statement by the Ministry Of Foreign Affairs, Nasheed "was granted permission under the condition to serve the remainder of the sentence upon return to the Maldives after surgery". While in London, Nasheed, with the support of Lawyer Amal Clooney, has vocally drawn attention to the Maldives' democratic shortcomings. Mr Mohamed Nasheed, who is serving 13-year jail term on terror charges, was granted 30 days leave for a back surgery, which expired on 22 January 2016. The former President requested an additional 60-day leave extension was temporarily rejected by the Maldivian authorities. Nasheed contends that a state-owned company once led by Maldives President Abdulla Yameen sold nearly $300 million worth of oil to Myanmar’s military dictatorship in the early 2000s; with nearly half the money disappearing. In May 2016, the U.K. government granted Nasheed political refugee status.

Due to the arrest of the judge, the opposition parties' protests gained momentum and demanded Judge Abdulla Mohamed's immediate release. During the detention of the judge, the Human Rights Commission of the Maldives (HRCM) was able to visit him in his place of detention, a military training base, and confirm his safety. Opposition Leaders also called for an independent investigation into the constitutionality of the arrest, a call echoed by the HRCM, the Judicial Services Commission, the Prosecutor General’s Office, the International Commission of Jurists, Amnesty International, and the United Nations Human Rights Commissioner. Military and police rejected the orders by the High Court to release Abdulla Mohamed.