The Island President Released From Prison to the UK
If you’re planning on booking that next dive trip to the Maldives, you may want to think twice. Human rights abuses there are on the rise.
“I think it’s important for tourists to know the facts of what’s happening in the Maldives,” human rights lawyer Amal Cooney recently said to NBC News. “I don’t think people realize that there’s a flogging taking place a kilometer away when they’re sunbathing in their resort. Democracy is dead in the Maldives. I mean literally, if there were an election now there would be no one to run against the president. Every opposition leader is either behind bars or being pursed by the government through the courts.”
One such opposition leader is Mohamed Nasheed, the first democratically elected president of the Maldives and international champion of climate change action, who was ousted as president of the Maldives in 2012 and jailed on what Mrs. …