By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, October 8 -- The UN often hooks up with celebrities in a desperate seeming to reach a wider public with its preaching about the rule of law and, yes, human rights. Sadder still is when the UN can't even keep up with the world of celebrity concern. So it is with the Maldives.
Inner City Press on Monday asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesman Martin Nesirky about the arrest, by riot police using pepper spray, of deposed Maldives president Mohamed Nasheed. Any comment?
Nesirky replied that while the UN has seen the reports, "there is a legal process that's in train, that needs to be able to run its course." Video here, from Minute 9:15.
Might it be an "illegal" train? A recent Amnesty International report on the Maldives details how "a campaign of violent repression this year has shattered this idyllic image, exposing a human rights crisis that has gripped the country since President Mohamed Nasheed's ousting in February 2012."
Given the prevalence of celebrity and affluent honeymoons on the Maldives, a group letter to this effect went out, from among others the UN blue tinted Ed Norton, Darryl Hannah, Minnie Driver, Richard Branson and Thom Yorke.
But where is the UN? They are watching the train of the "legal" processes, letting it runs its course. For how long? Watch this site.
