Arrested lamakers speak out against rights abuse in detention

MP Abdulla Shahid has described the state’s detention facility in Dhoonidhoo island, as a ‘hotbed’ of human rights abuse and prison law violations.

In an interview with RaajjeTV on Monday, Shahid said that police and correctional officers had not blatantly disregarded procedures when arresting and detaining him.

Shahid said that police had handcuffed individuals who showed no sign of resisting arrest, and his sentiments added to the opposition’s ongoing concern of police using disproportionate force and derogatory language when dealing with demonstrators.

Shahid, a long-serving statesman who was also once the speaker of Maldives’ unicameral parliament, was arrested alongside MP Abdulla Riyaz at a rally on Friday, where MP Mohamed Latheef Abdulla had also been apprehended.

MP Riyaz, who had served as police commissioner himself, said that detainees are assaulted and kept from ‘access to fundamental rights’. Riyaz said in his message while in detention, delivered through his lawyer, that he would work to ensure an end to such abuse.

MPs Shahid (R) and Riyaz arrested at Friday's rally

The rally was part of the allied opposition parties’ daily activities calling for democratic reform and President Abdulla Yameen’s resignation. Police had apprehended 17 demonstrators there, of whom two were released.

Local authorities have exercised the authority granted to them by Maldives’ ongoing state of emergency to the fullest extent, having arrested over thirty individuals within a span of a month.

On Monday, the Maldivian Democratic Party revealed that there are 36 individuals currently detained under the state of emergency. Lawyers representing them, most notably Hussain Shameem and Nazim Sattar, have expressed similar concerns of obstruction to the rights of detainees.