UN team heads to Maldives to defuse crisis

The United Nations is sending a delegation to the Maldives for talks after the government asked for international help to end a crippling stand off with the judiciary, the UN said saturday. The UN Department of Political Affairs, headed by Assistant Secretary-General Oscar Fernandez-Taranco, will arrive Thursday in the Maldives, a tiny archipelago in the Indian Ocean, a UN official said in a release. Anti-government activists have been protesting against President Mohamed Nasheed, who ordered the arrest last month of the head of the country's criminal court on charges of misconduct and favouring opposition figures. Criminal Court Chief Justice Abdulla Mohamed's arrest triggered a wave of street protests and clashes with police in the crowded capital, Male, on an almost daily basis for the past two weeks. The island's Supreme Court and prosecutor general have called for Mohamed's release, but he remains in military custody. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's spokesman Martin Nesirky said in the statement the mission will look at ways to help support Maldives in its transition to democracy. "The mission will meet with government officials, opposition leaders and civil society representatives to both discuss the current situation and identify opportunities to support the democratic transition," Nesirky said. Nasheed, a former political prisoner, was elected in 2008 when the Maldives staged its first democratic presidential election, unseating the long-serving autocratic regime of Maumoon Abdul Gayoom. But there have been a long-running string of demonstrations in the country spearheaded by Gayoom's opposition Dhivehi Raiyyithunge Party, calling on Nasheed to resign. Last month, Foreign Minister Ahmed Naseem wrote to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Commonwealth asking them to "urgently dispatch" a team of jurists to resolve the crisis. Naseem said the judicial impasse represented "a systemic failure."