Culture

“If I keep silent, I have become a traitor”: Velezinee vows to continue campaign against “silent coup”

10 Jan 2011, 9:23 PM
The President’s Member on the Judicial Services Commission (JSC) and outspoken whistleblower Aishath Velezinee has vowed to continue pushing for a public inquiry into the activities of the JSC, despite what she has described as an “assassination attempt” on Monday January 3.
Velezinee was hospitalised after she was stabbed three times in the back, in broad daylight on the main tourist street of Male’, “right outside the Home Minister’s door.”
Many international organisations, including Transparency International and the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), have expressed “grave concern that the attack may be politically motivated.”
Velezinee turned whistle-blower on the JSC in August 2010, after parliament failed to issue an injunction she had requested on the reappointment of judges before the conclusion of the constitutional interim period. Velezinee contends the reappointment of unsuitable judges – many largely uneducated and some with criminal convictions – was rushed through in collaboration with senior members of parliament.

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