Police targets media in their wave of arrests from opposition rallies

In the early hours of Friday evening, the joint opposition parties took to the streets to protest against the administration's prejudicial misconduct.

The anti-gvoernment rally is titled "Huttuvva" which translated to "Make it stop" and many arrests were made within.

Arrested were RaajjeTV's reporter Mohamed Fazeen who was active in the area at the time of his arrest, Mohamed Wisam who was taken under a court warrant and Amir Saleem who was arrested from outside the station shortly after the ruling Progressive Party of the Maldives (PPM)'s parliamentary group leader and Vilimale' Constituency MP Ahmed Nihan Hussain Manik claimed that the rebellious video portraying masked officers of the Special Operations unit threatening to join the mass anti-government protest, was created by RaajjeTV.

While the ruling party's PG leader has claimed RaajjeTV to be behind the scandal, three of the station's staff were apprehended within minutes after the claim.

Fazeen was arrested at around 09:25 pm from within the rally, Wisam and Amir's arrest followed shortly after.

The police evidently asked to see the station's program head's identity card before they had proceeded to place him inside the police vehicle declaring his arrest under a court warrant.

Sources report to the station that the three have now been taken to Dhoonidhoo island.

While the rally had kicked off at 08:30 pm Friday, many partook to call for the resignation of incumbent President Yameen and to implement the Supreme Court ruling issued on the 01st of February, officers of the SO unit clad in riot gear had showed up not long after and proceeded to disperse the crowd using pepper spray.

It is observed that some officers target the media at some rallies within the serial ones occurring on a nightly basis since the 01st of February.

All of the 23 individuals who were arrested and taken to Dhoonidhoo island's detention center from Thursday's rally have since been released.