A week after UN body's ruling, ex-President Nasheed returns to Sri Lanka
Former President Nasheed arrived in Sri Lanka late Sunday morning
Former President Mohamed Nasheed arrives in Sri Lanka
Opposition leader and former President, Mohamed Nasheed has returned to Sri Lanka.
While the purpose of his trip remains unclear, Nasheed arrived in Colombo late Sunday morning.
According to social media posts by senior Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) officials, MDP administration’s foreign minister Ahmed Naseem, MDP’s international spokesperson Hamid Abdul Ghafoor and member of the party’s national assembly, Umar Abdul Razzaq, had received the former president at the Bandaranaike International Airport.
The former president, who was issued a 13-year jail sentence over terror charges in March 2015, currently lives in self-exile in the United Kingdom, having being granted political asylum there.
In late March, he departed to United Kingdom from Sri Lanka, in order to meet a number of 'leaders and senior officials' of European nations. The details of these meetings have not been disclosed. He returned to United Kingdom on the 5th of April.
While Nasheed has traveled to Sri Lanka, the United Nations Human Rights Committee had, last week, demanded the release of the former president, and to ‘restore his rights to stand for office’.
The Government of Maldives has rejected the Committee’s decision, and denied that Nasheed’s rights had been violated. It maintained that the government “is committed to promoting and protecting the rights enshrined in the Constitution of the Maldives and in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights as per international obligations’.
The Human Rights Committee had noted that its findings showed that the judicial proceedings in the former president’s conviction were based on ‘vague legislation’ and contained ‘serious flaws’, adding that ‘his right to a fair trial under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) were violated as well.’
Following the government’s decision to reject the UN body’s demands, President Nasheed called on it to ‘review’ the response, and called to ‘open and enter into sincere dialogue with the opposition with the view to holding exclusive, free and fair Presidential Elections’.
The first round of the Presidential Elections is slated for September.
