MALE: The Maldives’ top judge was arrested Tuesday as security forces stormed the Supreme Court at dawn, after President Abdulla Yameen declared a state of emergency in the honeymoon islands.
The detention of Chief Justice Abdulla Saeed and another Supreme Court judge dramatically raised the stakes after Yameen refused to comply with the court’s order to release political dissidents.
Several countries have warned against travel to the upmarket holiday paradise.
Yameen, facing threats from a galvanized political opposition to impeach him for alleged corruption, had earlier ordered a shutdown of Parliament.
In a televised address to the nation, the president accused the judges of being part of a plot to overthrow him.
“I had to declare a national emergency because there was no other way to investigate these judges,” he said. “We had to find out how thick the plot or coup was.”
Yameen has presided over an escalating crackdown on dissent that has battered the image of the nation, and left almost all the political opposition jailed since he came to power in 2013.
On Monday, he ordered the arrest of his estranged half-brother and former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, who had sided with the main opposition.
He was taken from his home in the capital Male around midnight on Monday, hours after the government announced a 15-day state of emergency.
“I have not done anything to be arrested,” Gayoom said in a video message to supporters posted on Twitter. “I urge you to remain steadfast in your resolve too. We will not give up on the reform work we are doing.”
The exiled leader of the Maldives opposition, Mohamed Nasheed, accused Yameen of acting illegally and called on the US and India to step in and help remove him from office.
“President Yameen has illegally declared martial law and overrun the state. We must remove him from power,” said Nasheed, the first democratically elected leader of the Maldives, in a statement issued Tuesday.
“We would like the Indian government to send an envoy, backed by its military, to free the judges and the political detainees.”
Nasheed was jailed in 2015 after he was convicted on a terrorism charge widely seen as politically motivated. He has been in exile since 2016 when he traveled to the UK for medical treatment and was granted asylum there.
He has repeatedly accused Yameen of corruption and pledged to return from exile and run for president in elections due to be held later this year, after the Supreme Court last week quashed his terrorism conviction.
On Tuesday he said he was calling on India to send troops to the strategically located archipelago, which has grown increasingly close to regional rival China under Yameen’s leadership.
Tuesday’s arrests follow the court’s shock decision last Thursday to order the release of political dissidents and quash the convictions of Nasheed and other exiled opposition figures.
The judges also ordered the government to restore the seats of 12 legislators sacked for defecting from Yameen’s party, a move that effectively gave the opposition a majority in Parliament and the power to impeach the president.
Yameen, who has faced several unsuccessful opposition attempts to impeach him for alleged corruption, responded by shuttering Parliament before moving late Monday to impose a state of emergency.
That gives sweeping powers to security forces to arrest and detain individuals, curtails the powers of the judiciary and bars Parliament from impeaching Yameen.
The US said it was “troubled and disappointed” by the move and called on Yameen to comply with the rule of law.
The UN, Australia, Britain, Canada, India and the US had welcomed the court’s decision last week, while UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres at the weekend called for “restraint.”
The escalating crisis has also led several countries including the US and China to advise their citizens against traveling to the Maldives.
Last year nearly 1.4 million foreign holidaymakers visited the tiny nation of 1,190 coral islets famed for its pristine and secluded beaches.
Ex-president seeks Indian intervention after top Maldives’ judge arrested
Ex-president seeks Indian intervention after top Maldives’ judge arrested
WHO chief says reasons US gave for withdrawing ‘untrue’
- US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced in a joint statement Thursday that Washington had formally withdrawn from the WHO
- And in a post on X, Tedros added: “Unfortunately, the reasons cited for the US decision to withdraw from WHO are untrue”
GENEVA: The head of the UN’s health agency on Saturday pushed back against Washington’s stated reasons for withdrawing from the World Health Organization, dismissing US criticism of the WHO as “untrue.”
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that US announcement this week that it had formally withdrawn from the WHO “makes both the US and the world less safe.”
And in a post on X, he added: “Unfortunately, the reasons cited for the US decision to withdraw from WHO are untrue.”
He insisted: “WHO has always engaged with the US, and all Member States, with full respect for their sovereignty.”
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced in a joint statement Thursday that Washington had formally withdrawn from the WHO.
They accused the agency, of numerous “failures during the Covid-19 pandemic” and of acting “repeatedly against the interests of the United States.”
The WHO has not yet confirmed that the US withdrawal has taken effect.
- ‘Trashed and tarnished’ -
The two US officials said the WHO had “trashed and tarnished” the United States, and had compromised its independence.
“The reverse is true,” the WHO said in a statement.
“As we do with every Member State, WHO has always sought to engage with the United States in good faith.”
The agency strenuously rejected the accusation from Rubio and Kennedy that its Covid response had “obstructed the timely and accurate sharing of critical information that could have saved American lives and then concealed those failures.”
Kennedy also suggested in a video posted to X Friday that the WHO was responsible for “the Americans who died alone in nursing homes (and) the small businesses that were destroyed by reckless mandates” to wear masks and get vaccinated.
The US withdrawal, he insisted, was about “protecting American sovereignty, and putting US public health back in the hands of the American people.”
Tedros warned on X that the statement “contains inaccurate information.”
“Throughout the pandemic, WHO acted quickly, shared all information it had rapidly and transparently with the world, and advised Member States on the basis of the best available evidence,” the agency said.
“WHO recommended the use of masks, vaccines and physical distancing, but at no stage recommended mask mandates, vaccine mandates or lockdowns,” it added.
“We supported sovereign governments to make decisions they believed were in the best interests of their people, but the decisions were theirs.”
- Withdrawal ‘raises issues’ -
The row came as Washington struggled to dislodge itself from the WHO, a year after US President Donald Trump signed an executive order to that effect.
The one-year withdrawal process reached completion on Thursday, but Kennedy and Rubio regretted in their statement that the UN health agency had “not approved our withdrawal and, in fact, claims that we owe it compensation.”
WHO has highlighted that when Washington joined the organization in 1948, it reserved the right to withdraw, as long as it gave one year’s notice and had met “its financial obligations to the organization in full for the current fiscal year.”
But Washington has not paid its 2024 or 2025 dues, and is behind around $260 million.
“The notification of withdrawal raises issues,” WHO said Saturday, adding that the topic would be examined during WHO’s Executive Board meeting next month and by the annual World Health Assembly meeting in May.
“We hope the US will return to active participation in WHO in the future,” Tedros said Saturday.
“Meanwhile, WHO remains steadfastly committed to working with all countries in pursuit of its core mission and constitutional mandate: the highest attainable standard of health as a fundamental right for all people.”
