2005 Maldives Civil Unrest - Mohamed Nasheed's Arrest

Mohamed Nasheed's Arrest

On August 12, 2005, to mark the first anniversary of the Black Friday, members of the Maldivian Democratic Party and pro reformists started gathering near Republican Square. Despite heavy police and National Security Service (NSS) presence, at around 4:30pm local time Mohamed Nasheed along with other several leading members of the party, decided to gather at Republican square. Security was tight around Malé due to the obvious perceptibility of such a demonstration to mark this anniversary. Two days before, on August 10, 2005, NSS announced that they will be conducting a huge training in Malé for four days, starting from August 11, 2005.

Despite heavy police presence, Mohamed Nasheed decided to sit right in the center of the Republican square with his colleagues. Minutes later he was approached by a team of Maldives Police Service. They approached him and asked him to simply "go away" from there. Nasheed demanded to know why he was asked to leave while he is not committing anything illegal. The leader of this team responded by saying such gatherings are illegal and they will have to remove him by force if not obeyed within five minutes. To this ultimatum, Nasheed responded by saying. "You will give us five minutes, after that what? You will beat us to death?". At one time Nasheed asked the police to join them, since he is not inciting violence but peacefully sitting there. Since he refused to leave the spot, the police team moved towards the flag pole few meters away.

At around 4:23 p.m., riot police moved into Republican Square. Soon they surrounded Mohamed Nasheed and other members of the party present with him. Nasheed and his colleagues still refused to leave the area. Members of riot then forcefully removed them and taken into nearby NSS headquarters. A footage of this event was leaked to Minivan News, run from outside the country. Along with Nasheed and shortly after that, several others were arrested.

• Jennifer Latheef
• Latheefa Umar
• Aminath Shareef
• Ahmed Abbas
• Aminath Shareef