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Male, Maldives – Afternoon explosion It was felt across the Male, the capital of the island of Maldives, a city with a white labyrinth famous for its clean beaches and turquoise waters of the Indian Ocean archipelago. The target was one of the country’s most prominent politicians: Mohamed Nasheed, the first democratically elected president and current parliamentary speaker.
The blast occurred on Thursday, at 9pm, when they encountered a new location in the COVID-19 case amid a dramatic rise, and at a time when Sunni Muslim populations are traditionally dedicated to prayer, the Quran first appeared on Holy Night. It is believed to be in the last 10 nights of Ramadan.
Photographs taken by the crowd that gathered soon – including worshipers walking home from the mosques – showed the mangled remains of a blue motorcycle. The blood stained the earth. The motorcycle was parked on the corner of the road leading to the Nasheed family home in a small alley that was too narrow for cars. An attached device rang from a distance as the 53-year-old was about to enter his car on the main street.
Nasheed was taken to hospital he underwent several surgeries according to doctors, for life-threatening injuries to his chest, head and abdomen. He he regained consciousness on Saturday morning, three bodyguards and a flying shrapnel man were also injured while two guards were treated for their injuries.
Attempted killings in a peaceful but unprecedented peaceful country, “deliberately terrified action”It was horrible, close to universal condemnation and outbursts of sadness.
Many believe the attack came as no surprise.
“It is clear that the attempted assassination of Nasheed is a well-planned attempt,” said Ahmed Shaheed, a special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief in the United Nations, as a foreign minister in the former president’s cabinet. Saying that Nasheed is “the most beloved and hated man in the Maldives”, Shaheed said the attack was not a surprise “given the huge push in the area of violence and dehumanization against him”.
Police announced Saturday afternoon arrests two suspects. There was no additional information and the reason is unclear, but speculation is based on two groups: religious “extremists” and political opponents were allegedly complicit in a historic scandal that allegedly feared exposure.
The legacy of impunity
A former political prisoner, Nasheed was elected president of the Maldives in the first multi-party elections in 2008, ending 30 years of autocratic rule. But he had to leave office for just three years to end his term in the face of a police and military uprising. The politician is very loyal as an indefatigable champion of democracy and free speech, but conservative opponents condemn the unscrupulous political agenda of secularizing the Maldives, a nation linked to Sunni Muslim citizenship.
He came out of power and Nasheed clashed with religious leaders, and they regularly denounce the alleged anti-Islamic agenda. In the aftermath of Thursday’s bombing, supporters dug up cases of chaos by religious scholars and shared them on social media.
“While not responsible for the attack, some social media accounts have made it clear that the genuine extremist group is a gamble worthy of killing Nasheed,” said Azim Zahir, a researcher at the Center for Muslim States and a Western Australian University corporation.
“Nasheed is the loudest character against the country’s extremist groups,” Zahir said, noting that the former president was among the first politicians in the country to bring hundreds of Maldivians to fight for ISIL (ISIS) in Syria and Iraq. fighters – up to 250 Maldivians estimated to have traveled.
In September 2019, the United States first named a Maldivian man, Ahmed Ameen, as “a key leader in ISIS in Syria, Afghanistan and the Maldives,” saying he was actively engaged in ISIL recruitment in the Maldives, among various criminal gangs.
Commenting on the timing of the explosion against Nasheed, Zahir noted that the first “terrorist” attack in the Maldives – which injured several tourists – also took place in Ramadan in 2007. ISIL has encouraged Maldivian sympathizers to carry out attacks on the Maldan fasting month – most recently in the April issue of Sawt al-Hind magazine, which published ISIL’s regional chapter for South Asia or the Islamic State in Hind Province, saying Zahir regularly supported Maldivians.
“Maldivian ISIL actors are certainly capable of such an attack,” Zahir said, noting past events that suggested some of them were trained to make improvised explosives, including in the case of a dense plot to bomb the school lab. year.
In particular, in a press conference on Friday evening, police commissioner Mohamed Hameed acknowledged that he was allegedly “extremist” in knowing that he was carrying out attacks such as the one he had committed against Nasheed.
“Some are in prisons, and others, many people, are free – in some cases because they are convicted in court or active as free citizens because there is not enough evidence against them,” he said.
Hameed stressed that police have received no indication of an immediate attack on Nasheed, and when reporters were fired for failing to mentally, he said future inquiries should be determined.
Journalist Ahmed Rilwan, who disappeared in 2014, was killed by a local al-Qaeda affiliate, a research team said in 2019 [Courtesy of Sharif Ali]
For many, the assassination attempt on Nasheed has resulted in a legacy of impunity left by unresolved killings linked to ISIL and Al-Qaeda-linked groups, such as the assassination of liberal blogger Yameen Rasheed, the kidnapping of journalist Ahmed Rilwan and the religious Afrasheem. Ali.
“There are elements among us who are ready to resort to assassinations, whether for political or other ideological reasons,” said former Maldivian Attorney General Dhiyana Said.
“But the response of all the administrations, current and former, has not been satisfactory. Despite all the systems we have in place – the police force, the defense force, the anti-terrorism cells, the presidential committees – no government has yet been able to straighten the roots and find the brains and financiers behind the proliferating cells. train these saboteurs of peace. Or, if they did, they certainly wouldn’t have been judged, ”Said added.
“Until we are able to deliver full and complete justice, the feeling of impunity remains the same and it seems to me that this sense of impunity and invincibility was, in part, trying to live in Nasheed’s life.”
Said said the attack on the former president was an “religious motivation” that had an “easy effect,” but other reasons should not be ruled out (such as Nasheed’s campaign to prosecute politicians who took advantage of at least $ 79 million in tourism funds). “Until an impartial and thorough investigation finds all the facts.”
Former Maldives president and current parliamentary speaker Mohamed Nasheed has undergone life-saving surgery after a bomb blast outside his home
Read more: https://t.co/Qtaj39qzdF pic.twitter.com/ug1I7OFINg
– Al Jazeera ingelesa (@AJEnglish) May 8, 2021
‘Call to wake up’
Nasheed – just hours before the attack – reported on Twitter that the state-owned tourism company had obtained a list of all the people who had been evicted from the Maldives Marketing and Public Relations Corporation (MMPRC) property. The 2014 and 2015 scandal sparked the election of former President Abdulla Yameen in 2018 to Nasheed’s ally and childhood friend Ibrahim Mohamed Solih.
A few days after taking office, the new president set up a committee to investigate the MMPRC corruption, and authorities have since revealed that more than 250 have come out thanks to stolen funds, including lawmakers and senior government officials. Three years after Solih’s tenure, so far only Yameen has been convicted on charges related to the MMPRC scandal.
Nasheed returned to the Maldives after being in exile for more than two years [File: Mohamed Sharuhaan/AP Photo]
In recent months, government parties loyal to Nasheed have been increasingly censored against Solih for delaying the trial of allegedly beneficiaries of stolen funds and delaying responsibility for ISIL and Al-Qaeda-related attacks and deaths. In the Maldives.
Nasheed himself has expressed frustration with the presidential committees set up to investigate the corruption scandal and the murders of Yameen, Rilwan and Afrasheem independently. He warned last year that the “deep state” of officials embedded in state institutions that were in line with the “extreme” ideology was blocking justice, a statement the police chief discussed.
In the wake of Thursday’s attack, Solih has once again called for a “rapid and in-depth investigation”, this time with the help of Australian federal police.
But Azra Naseem, an analyst and writer for the Dhivehi Sitee blog, expressed serious doubts about whether anyone would be brought to justice in Nasheed’s case.
“If there is anything to move forward with the accusation processes of other jihadists who have attacked the Maldivians who have attacked the Maldives, there will be every step along the way,” he said.
“The investigation will be stopped, or the prosecution will not find enough evidence to stand trial, or the defense attorney may have headaches. In this case the result will be the same as in other cases. Jihadists are free to walk. Or they are allowed to leave the country safely in more” Muslim “societies than the Maldives “Justice cannot be achieved through the rule of law because” true justice “is already considered to have killed the infidels,” he said.
UN human rights expert Shaheed said the people of the Maldives “have little faith, no reason, in the government’s ability to fight hard against gangs and violent extremists.”
“But in a small community like the Maldives, everyone knows what everyone else is doing, so it should be easy to fix that, given the willingness to do so. And I think that’s an alarm clock for the government to take it seriously,” he added.
“This event could be a turning point in the Maldives; to encourage the government to take violence, extremism, corruption and impunity seriously and to take a change of steps to defend the rule of law. “
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