UN body urged to rule that Nasheed’s disqualification is illegal

The UN Human Rights Committee has been urged to rule that disqualifying Mohamed Nasheed from the 2018 presidential race violates international law, as his legal team seeks to restore his political rights.

Nasheed is currently ineligible to contest the election as he was sentenced to 13 years in prison on a controversial terrorism charge.

His jailing after a rushed trial, marred by apparent due process violations, was ruled illegal and politically motivated by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.

But the government rejected the “[legally] non-binding opinion” of the WGAD and the Supreme Court went on to uphold Nasheed’s conviction over the military’s detention of a top judge.

In October 2016 his lawyers filed a complaint with the UNHRC seeking its intervention to secure his candidacy.

On Monday his legal team said it had filed a 40-page brief responding to the Maldivian government’s reply to the UNHRC.

“I am very confident in our case and strongly believe the Human Rights Committee now has all the information it needs to determine that Nasheed’s disqualification from the Maldives 2018 presidential election would be a flagrant violation of its binding legal obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,” said Jared Genser, Nasheed’s lead counsel on the UNHRC submission.

“When the government loses, it will have to re-qualify president Nasheed or ensure that the international community will declare in advance of the vote that the election cannot be considered either free or fair.”