MALÉ, Maldives: Former Maldives president Mohamed Nasheed was in a “critical” condition on Friday following an assassination attempt, doctors said.
Nasheed, 53, the Maldives’ first democratically elected president and still an important figure in the island nation’s murky politics, was rushed to hospital after an explosion late Thursday.
Since then he has undergone 16 hours of life-saving operations in the capital Male for injuries to his head, chest, abdomen and limbs.
The private ADK hospital said Friday evening that Nasheed was “in a critical condition in intensive care.”
In a televised address to the nation, President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih announced that a team from the Australian Federal Police (AFP) would arrive Saturday to help with the investigation into the blast.
Solih described the attack as an assault on the fledgling democracy, promising the perpetrators “would face the full force of the law.”
Police said officials from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime have also been asked to assist in the investigation.
Maldivian police said they were treating Thursday’s bomb attack as a “deliberate act of terror” and urged the public to provide any information that could identify the perpetrators.
Police said a device attached to a motorcycle was detonated as Nasheed got into a car in the capital.
The hospital said earlier that shrapnel had been removed from one of his lungs and from his liver but that another piece was still in the same organ.
“We are hopeful of a full recovery,” said a family member who did not want to be named, adding that Nasheed was responsive and spoke with doctors when he was admitted.
One of his bodyguards as well as a British national were also wounded and taken to hospital.
The Indian Ocean nation of 340,000 Sunni Muslims is best known for its luxury holiday resorts popular with honeymooners, but it suffers from regular political turmoil.
There was no claim of responsibility for Thursday’s bomb attack, but officials close to Nasheed’s Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) said they suspected vested political interests opposed to his anti-corruption drive.
Nasheed had vowed to investigate a $90-million theft from the state’s tourism promotion authority during the tenure of former president Abdulla Yameen.
“There are some dormant Islamists who could have collaborated with political elements threatened by Nasheed’s anti-corruption drive,” an MDP source told AFP.
The government has cracked down on extremism and foreign preachers are banned.
Violent attacks have been rare, though a dozen foreign tourists were wounded by a bomb blast in Male in 2007.
The Islamic State claimed a boat arson attack last year, but there is little evidence the group has a presence in the archipelago.
Nasheed, a liberal, is maybe best known internationally for holding a 2009 underwater cabinet meeting to highlight the threat of global warming, signing documents as officials wore scuba gear against a backdrop of coral reefs.
He was toppled in a military-backed coup in February 2012, convicted on a charge of terrorism and jailed for 13 years.
He left the country on prison leave for medical treatment and sought refuge in Britain.
He returned after his nominee Solih won the presidency in 2018, winning parliamentary elections the next year to become speaker.
Messages of support for Nasheed poured in on Friday from neighboring India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka as well as Western nations, which have strongly backed his pro-democracy and environmental activism.
Maldives ex-president ‘critical’ after assassination attempt
https://arab.news/4hxhr
Maldives ex-president ‘critical’ after assassination attempt
- Nasheed is the Maldives’ first democratically elected president
- He has undergone 16 hours of life-saving operations in the capital Male for injuries to his head, chest, abdomen and limbs after the explosion
US bars five Europeans it says pressured tech firms to censor American viewpoints online
WASHINGTON: The State Department announced Tuesday it was barring five Europeans it accused of leading efforts to pressure US tech firms to censor or suppress American viewpoints.
The Europeans, characterized by Secretary of State Marco Rubio as “radical” activists and “weaponized” nongovernmental organizations, fell afoul of a new visa policy announced in May to restrict the entry of foreigners deemed responsible for censorship of protected speech in the United States.
“For far too long, ideologues in Europe have led organized efforts to coerce American platforms to punish American viewpoints they oppose,” Rubio posted on X. “The Trump Administration will no longer tolerate these egregious acts of extraterritorial censorship.”
The five Europeans were identified by Sarah Rogers, the under secretary of state for public diplomacy, in a series of posts on social media. They include the leaders of organizations that address digital hate and a former European Union commissioner who clashed with tech billionaire Elon Musk over broadcasting an online interview with Donald Trump.
Rubio’s statement said they advanced foreign government censorship campaigns against Americans and US companies, which he said created “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences” for the US.
The action to bar them from the US is part of a Trump administration campaign against foreign influence over online speech, using immigration law rather than platform regulations or sanctions.
The five Europeans named by Rogers are: Imran Ahmed, chief executive of the Center for Countering Digital Hate; Josephine Ballon and Anna-Lena von Hodenberg, leaders of HateAid, a German organization; Clare Melford, who runs the Global Disinformation Index; and former EU Commissioner Thierry Breton, who was responsible for digital affairs.
Rogers in her post on X called Breton, a French business executive and former finance minister, the “mastermind” behind the EU’s Digital Services Act, which imposes a set of strict requirements designed to keep Internet users safe online. This includes flagging harmful or illegal content like hate speech.
She referred to Breton warning Musk of a possible “amplification of harmful content” by broadcasting his livestream interview with Trump in August 2024 when he was running for president.
Breton responded Tuesday on X by noting that all 27 EU members voted for the Digital Services Act in 2022. “To our American friends: ‘Censorship isn’t where you think it is,’” he wrote.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said France condemns the visa restrictions on Breton and the four others. Also posting on X, he said the DSA was adopted to ensure that “what is illegal offline is also illegal online.” He said it “has absolutely no extraterritorial reach and in no way concerns the United States.”
Most Europeans are covered by the Visa Waiver Program, which means they don’t necessarily need visas to come into the country. They do, however, need to complete an online application prior to arrival under a system run by the Department of Homeland Security, so it is possible that at least some of these five people have been flagged to DHS, a US official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss details not publicly released.
Other visa restriction policies were announced this year, along with bans targeting foreign visitors from certain African and Middle Eastern countries and the Palestinian Authority. Visitors from some countries could be required to post a financial bond when applying for a visa.
