Police and MNDF units dismissed from Artificial Beach under Nasheed

The Human Rights Commission of the Maldives (HRCM) has stated that police and MNDF units keeping law and order at Artificial Beach area on the 6th of February, while the “23rd December Alliance” and activists of the Maldivian Democratic Party were conducting mass protests, were ordered to be dismissed from the area by the then President Mohamed Nasheed. The HRCM said that this was an illegal order, in contravention to Article 238 of the Constitution of the Maldives.

HRCM’s statements came in its Report on the incidents that occurred on the 6th and 7th of February in Malé.

HRCM’s Report, which is focused on human rights issues raised in the aftermath of the incidents of 6th and 7th of February, said that the then President Nasheed, as the Head of State and Government, repeatedly issued illegal orders on the MNDF and the Maldives Police Services as revealed by its investigations.

The Report also said that Nasheed’s illegal orders, which violated statutes regulating the MNDF and Police among a number of other statutory legislation and also the Constitution, were obeyed by the military and police for a long time, disrupting the command and control of the security forces and causing the State and the people enormous losses and damage.

HRCM Report, which was confidentially shared with concerned authorities, but not published officially, has been leaked by the Progressive Party of the Maldives (PPM).

“This Commission’s investigations revealed that the command and control of the security forces were disrupted, several officers of the MNDF and the Maldives Police Services and also many civilians suffered personal injuries, damage was caused to both public and private property, and human rights of a large number of people were undermined, as a result of the senior officers of the MNDF and the Police obeying repeated orders of Mohamed Nasheed, the President of the Country, the Head of State, and the Commander-in-Chief of the security forces, in contravention to the Constitution of the Maldives, international conventions and the laws regulating the security forces, and in ways that would disturb the lawful discharge of the role of the security forces”, read the Report of HRCM.

The Report also said that security forces controlling protesting crowds at the Artificial Beach area on the night of 6th of February were pulled out of the area under orders from Nasheed in contravention to Article 245 of the Constitution, and that this act obstructed the security forces from discharging their legal duties at the scene where two protesting parties were sure to confront.

In the Report running for 57 pages, the HRCM also said that “investigations did not establish” that there was any attempt to assassinate Nasheed while he was at Bandeyrige, the Headquarters of the Maldives National Defence Force (MNDF).

Nasheed’s Maldivian Democratic Party has claimed that the opposition, in unison with some individuals in the military, planned to assassinate President Nasheed on the 7th of February while he was at Bandeyrige.