The Maldives situation was once again discussed in the UK Parliament.
Speaking at Tuesday’s parliament session, UK’s former Foreign Office Minister and current conservative MP for East Devon, Hugo Swire expressed concern over the crisis in Maldives, and called for targeted sanctions against the current regime’s leaders.
After giving a brief update of the current political situation in the Maldives, Swire called on the British government to:
- Call for the release and access to lawyers for all political prisoners
- Lobby for an UN backed mission, led by someone like Kofi Annan, to go to the Maldives without delay
- Call for free and properly convened elections later this year to be overseen by an international body
- Provide support and assistance in the wholesale reform of judges and the judicial system
- Work with other like-minded countries to counter Islamic radicalization in the Maldives
- Raise the issue of the Maldives at the forthcoming Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in April
- Ask the opposition parties to provide a list of resorts owned by President Abdulla Yameen’s circle in order that they can be publicized and boycotted in the event that none of the above happening
- Put plans in place, to increase targeted sanctions against the Yameen regime if the Supreme Court ruling is not fully implemented
Responding to Swire, Minister of State for Asia and the Pacific, Mark Field said that he shares Swire’s “disappointment and alarm” over the recent deterioration in the political outlook in the Maldives.
Noting that he will be addressing all of Swire’s concerns, MP Field that the UK will continue to work “both bilaterally and with international partners” to urge President Yameen to “end the state of emergency peacefully, to restore all Articles of the Constitution, and to restore a proper functioning parliament so that the people of Maldives can once more enjoy their full democratic rights and freedoms and live without fear or intimidation”.
The UK Parliament had discussed the Maldives situation back in February as well,
