Opposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) has slammed telecoms giant, Dhiraagu, for “conspiring” with authorities “to hack the phone of a regime critic”.

Last week, MDP’s social media activist Thayyib Shaheem had learnt that his phone had been disconnected without his knowledge, and reassigned.

Noting that the third party was the Maldives Police Service, MDP said that the institution had used the phone number “to access Thayyib’s social media accounts and change the passwords”.

MDP said that Dhiraagu had first denied any involvement in the matter, but had later admitted that it had “provided the police with access to Thayyib’s phone”.

“Nobody can trust Dhiraagu anymore. They appear more than willing to sell out their customers’ privacy to curry favour with an illegal, illegitimate and corrupt regime; that says everything you need to know about the state of the Maldives,” said MDP’s international spokesperson Hamid Abdul Ghafoor.

The party said that Thayyib “has since managed to recover access to his social media accounts,” adding that lawyers described “Dhiraagu’s behavior and the actions of the police as unlawful”.

Thayyib, a former Amnesty International Prisoner of Conscience, accuses Dhiraagu of cloning his SIM card and passing it to the police. Police has, on multiple occasions, summoned Thayyib for questioning, even seizing his phone, over the information he posts on the social media site.

He currently resides in Sri Lanka, along with a number of other opposition activists.