“The world needs more Nasheeds”, international human rights lawyer Amal Clooney has said.
Speaking on NBC’s Nightly News on Thursday, Mrs.Clooney described former President Nasheed as a hero, and highlighted that she suspected the attack on Mahfooz Saeed, a member of the former President’s legal team, was an attempt to deter her from pursuing Nasheed’s case.
“It was not the most comfortable position to be in. But I was determined to go. It meant a lot to me to meet Nasheed who I had read about, and considered to be a hero. I was inspired by his leadership on climate justice, by his leadership on human rights. And I thought to myself the world needs more Nasheeds”, Amal Clooney told Cynthia McFadden.
Referring to the demise of democracy in the Maldives, Mrs.Clooney emphasized that if there were to be an election right now, there would be no one to run against President Yaameen, and noted “all opposition leaders are either behind bars or being pursued by the Government through courts”.
She further stated that although Nasheed had appealed his conviction at the Supreme Court of the Maldives, she had absolutely no faith that he would get justice through the local judiciary.
During their visit to Washington, Nasheed’s legal team members, Amal Clooney and Jared Genser, and the former Foreign Minister of Maldives, Ahmed Naseem, had met with influential figures in the U.S. Senate and Congress to seek their help in pushing for Nasheed’s release.
The former President’s legal team had also recently sent the White House an undisclosed list of senior government officials and businessmen responsible for the serious human rights violations in the country.
In addition to the White House, the list—similar to the one submitted to the British government in November 2015—had also been sent to the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.
