Art student's new lease of life (From Asian Image)

Art student's new lease of life

9:43am Thursday 12th March 2009

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Naushad Waheed is not your typical student.

For as well as being in the final year of his Public Art MA at the University of Bolton, the 46-year-old now holds the position of Counsellor (Cultural) at the High Commission for the Maldives.

His new appointment will see him improve cultural links between the Maldives and other nations.

But it is all the more remarkable because for more than 20 years, Mr Waheed was a political prisoner in his homeland, persecuted for his opposition to the then president, Maumoon Gayyoom, who ran the island nation as a ruthless dictatorship.

As a critic of the former president, Mr Waheed was forced to flee the Indian Ocean islands after being imprisoned eight times for his views. He arrived in the UK in 2006 as a political refugee where he started a new life, even enrolling for his masters degree in public art.

Mr Waheed was first targeted by the authorities in 1989 when a satirical cartoon was printed in a newspaper and resulted in a three-and-a-half-year jail term.

And until he left the Maldives, Mr Waheed endured summary arrest, imprisonment, solitary confinement and witnessed acts of brutality and torture.

His new appointment follows the democratic elections last November when the president was defeated and the first democratic government was formed.

During his time in the Maldives, Mr Waheed set up the country's first art school, although it was forced to close in 2003.

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