Ahmed Saleem is a Maldivian diplomat who is currently serving as Ambassador-at-Large at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Maldives. Previously, he was the 11th Secretary-General of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) from 2012 to 2014. From May 2015 to February 2020 he served as High Commissioner of Maldives to Pakistan and non-resident Ambassador accredited to Nepal.
Early years and education
Saleem was educated in Malé, Maldives and in New Delhi, India.
Diplomatic career
Saleem joined the Maldivian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1968. He had a distinguished career spanning for more than 30 years, during which he served in various capacities in the Ministry, such as Controller of Immigration & Emigration, Chief of Protocol, Under-Secretary (Head of the Multilateral Department) and Secretary. As a career diplomat, Saleem served at the Maldives’ High Commission in Sri Lanka and Permanent Mission in New York, two of only few diplomatic missions Maldives had at the time. During his deputation to the Ministry of Finance for one year in 1977, he became his Government's first Alternate Governor for the World Bank, International Development Association (IDA) and Asian Development Bank (ADB). From 1990 to 1993, he served as the first Director from Maldives at the SAARC Secretariat, Kathmandu, Nepal.
Mr Saleem presented credentials to the President of Pakistan as Maldives High Commissioner in Pakistan on 12 June 2015. Subsequently, he presented credentials to the President of Nepal on 29 February 2016 as Non-Resident Maldivian Ambassador to Nepal. Since February 2020, Mr. Saleem is Ambassador-at-Large at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Maldives.
Democracy and human rights
Saleem has been a strong advocate of democracy and human rights. During his presidency of the Human Rights Commission of Maldives (HRCM) from 2007 to 2010, Saleem played a crucial role in raising awareness about the values of democracy and human rights in the country, which became a democracy in 2008. Saleem was one of the original nine members when the HRCM was first established by the Presidential decree on 10 December 2003, five years before the first democratic constitution came into force in 2008 in the Maldives. Subsequently, in 2006, Saleem was appointed by the Maldivian Parliament as the President of the newly constituted HRCM, a fully autonomous body under the Maldivian law and in full conformity with the Paris Principles. He served in that capacity until August 2010.
Having contributed many writings both in Dhivehi and English, Saleem's role in the promotion of democracy and human rights in the Maldives is widely recognized. The fact that the first HRCM was established five years before democracy came to the country, made it extremely difficult for the HRCM to carry out its mandatory functions. Maldives, a country that has never ever experienced democracy in its entire history, was not quite ready to embrace democracy and therefore criticizing or condemning the Government on any issue was tantamount to committing a crime that prompted verbal and physical attacks and threats on members of the HRCM. Partly as a result, most of the members of the HRCM resigned on one pretext or the other. However, Saleem was one of the two members, who refused to quit and remained until the HRCM became an autonomous body in November 2006. It was the HRCM which taught the Maldivians that they had a right to free speech and also criticize the Government. Meetings held by the HRCM for advocating human rights and the rule of law and for creating a culture of dialogue among the newly created political parties, were welcomed by the opposition, while the Government resisted them.
HRCM also played a crucial role in internationalizing the human rights atrocities that had taken place in jails. An uprising by convicts in the major jail close to the capital of Malé in 2004, which resulted in the brutal killing of one of the inmates by the police, prompted the anti-government demonstrations, paving the way for the Maldives to turn into a democratic country in 2008.