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An Evening with President Mohamed Nasheed
Activist, Journalist, Prisoner of Conscience, President of The Maldives (2008-2012)

Wednesday September 21st
6:30pm

Dechert LLP
1900 K Street, 12th Floor

Please join Freedom Now and Dechert for an evening with President Mohamed Nasheed, former President of the Maldives.

An activist, journalist, and politician, President Nasheed served as the first democratically-elected President of the Maldives before a coup removed him from office in 2012. He was wrongly imprisoned and sentenced to 13 years in prison on terrorism charges by the Maldivian government in February 2015 in a bid to silence him and end his political career. He was released earlier this year after a coordinated international campaign by Freedom Now.

Since his release from prison, President Nasheed has organized the political opposition to the current regime, highlighting the gross and ongoing human rights abuses in his country being committed by President Abdulla Yameen, in a bid to maintain his iron grip on power.

President Nasheed will conduct an informal discussion about the Maldives and its role in the international community, covering issues of human rights, arbitrary detention, Islamic radicalism, and climate change.

If you are able to attend, please RSVP with your name and affiliation to khorberg@freedom-now.org<mailto:khorberg@freedom-now.org>.

Freedom Now
Freedom Now is a nonpartisan nonprofit organization, founded in 2001, with charitable status in the US and the UK. The organization promotes respect for human rights and rule of law worldwide by helping to free prisoners of conscience - individuals wrongly imprisoned because of their exercise of fundamental rights, such as their right to freedom of expression, freedom of belief, or freedom of peaceful assembly, among others.

Freedom Now achieves its goal through a multi-pronged strategy that combines legal representation and political, and public relations advocacy on behalf of individuals, with the aim of supporting individual liberty and conscience, and eliminating the practice of arbitrary detention. Since its founding, Freedom Now has worked on 61 campaigns in 26 countries, helping to free more than 100 people. Some of the individuals we have helped are well known internationally, such as Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi from Burma and President Nasheed from the Maldives, while others are less visible abroad but critically important in their countries, such as the Mauritanian anti-slavery activist Biram Dah Abeid. You can learn more about our work and our cases here: www.freedom-now.org<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.freedom-2Dnow.org_&d=DQMFAg&c=XHgqDMffAkUKcWDgZTAtfA&r=UgD5zmUov82scAgCTvMxTKGeuw7tnHDT41Avds83pGE&m=sRG0fGY2CBfXH1HYEo4P4ND0e9e3OpLwhbef9efabzI&s=R5PX9VFx-kuy0s7R_ojdyLl-xyphTV7CrSPvFdEST64&e=>.

Mohamed Nasheed
Mohamed Nasheed is an activist, journalist, and politician who served as the first democratically-elected president of the Maldives. President Nasheed made a name for himself as a dissident journalist, regularly challenging the authoritarian regime of former President Maumoon Gayoom. As a result of his outspoken criticism, he was repeatedly arrested, imprisoned, and tortured. In 2003, President Nasheed formed the opposition Maldivian Democratic Party and in 2008, on a platform of human rights and democratic principles, he was elected president in the country's first multi-party democratic elections, sweeping away 30 years of one-man rule. President Nasheed used his position as a platform for democratic reforms and climate activism. His work fighting to address climate change at the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Summit was captured in the acclaimed documentary The Island President, available on Netflix<https://www.netflix.com/title/70221845>. Sadly, President Nasheed's term in office was cut short in 2012 by a coup, and he was later arrested on false charges intended to remove him and his political party, which continued to be very popular among the people. Freedom Now worked on his case, along with Amal Clooney and Ben Emmerson QC, and in October 2015, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention issued an opinion finding President Nasheed's detention to be in violation of international law and called on the Maldivian government to release him. After an escalating advocacy campaign by Freedom Now and his pro bono legal team, which include this<https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/01/17/in-the-maldives-the-first-democratically-elected-president-is-imprisoned-while-islamic-state-fighters-go-free/?utm_term=.e8a80052c7f8> Washington Post oped, the government allowed President Nasheed to leave the Maldives on medical leave in late January 2016, allowing him to travel to the UK. In May 2016, the UK government granted him asylum. The situation in the Maldives continues to deteriorate. In recent weeks, a new criminal defamation law was adopted and numerous independent media outlets have been shut down. The Home Ministry is enforcing a ban on street protests. And the Government has issued a new arrest warrant for President Nasheed. He will be in Washington and New York advocating for greater engagement by the United States and the United Nations to help restore democracy to The Maldives.