HRCM probes police brutality at rallies

The Human Rights Commission of the Maldives (HRCM) has said that the police had used excessive force in dispersing crowds of demonstrators and that media and citizens have suffered due to police actions.

The Commission claimed that it has been observing the demonstrations taking the country through a political turmoil ever since President Abdulla Yameen refused to implement a Supreme Court order ruling the release of political prisoners and the reinstatement of unseated MPs.

A report released by the Commission on Monday reads that it has come to the notice of spectators that officers of Maldives Police Service’s Special Operations unit had used force uncalled for in their efforts to control crowds at anti-government rallies.

The report also notes that some citizens and the media present in the area to cover peaceful anti-government protests are seen wounded due to unnecessary exertion of power by some officers of the police force.

Adding that police conduct on the excessive use of pepper-spray is against the guidelines issued in the use of less lethal weapons authorized for crowd control at protests, the commission further highlighted the manner in which police communicates, calling it inappropriate language.

Noting that while recent anti-government protests are seen as peaceful, police use of excessive force in the dispersion of crowds is unacceptable and that the commission is looking into six cases of alleged police assault on individuals arrested at protests under the Anti-Torture Act, out of which three are being investigated on the commission’s resources.

The commission had evidently shared the information specified in the report with the MPS on the 18th of February as well as the 11th of March.

Throughout the series of protests being observed since the administration’s refusal to obey the Supreme Court ruling passed by five sitting justices, many had become victim to police assaults, some have been severely injured and taken to hospital with one protestor having been subject to a heavy amount of pepper-spray resulting in him going into a coma and another having broken his arm and having flown abroad for treatment.

Comprising the attacks on journalists including the assault on RaajjeTV’s journalist Hussain Hassan after having been taken into police custody from an opposition protest on the 16th of February, many have repeatedly been taken into police custody from anti-government rallies.