Amila Kankanamage, the president of Colombo’s Chamber of Commerce, has responded to Monday’s incidents in the Maldives where security officials had locked-down the parliament and barred MPs from entering it.

Military and police officers had barred parliamentarians that had attempted to into parliament, on the day for which voting on a no-confidence motion against parliament speaker Abdulla Maseeh was scheduled. They had used pepper-spray and attempted to forcibly remove MPs that had managed to enter the premises.

Kankanamage, who is also an advisor to the Minister of Local Government, responded to these incidents in a tweet on Monday.

The military had blockaded parliament and forcefully removed MPs from the building, which lead to demonstrations near the area.

Officers of the police’s Special Operations (SO) unit had violently attempted to disband the demonstrators through by using pepper-spray and arresting several of them, including journalists that were on scene to cover the incident.