President no longer abides by laws, no practical difference in the ongoing crisis despite lift of SoE: Maldives Joint Opposition
The Joint Opposition called on the international community to take "swift action" against Maldives, including targeted sanctions on regime officials
Former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, who ruled the nation for 30 years, being transferred from Dhoonidhoo Detention Center to the capital city, for remand hearing
The Maldives Joint Opposition has called on the international community to take “swift action,” despite the lift of the state of emergency in Maldives.
In a statement issued on Thursday, the Joint Opposition said that incumbent President Abdulla Yameen’s decision to lift the state of emergency “will not make any practical difference in the ongoing crisis as the President no longer abides by laws or the Constitution as the President no longer abides by laws or the Constitution”. It noted that “rushed remand hearings” have been held for a number of key state of emergency detainees “to ensure their continued detention past the state of emergency”.
It noted that the Prosecutor General’s Office had announced charges against 11 key figures, two days prior to the expiration of the state of emergency, and that Criminal Court had ordered to remand the until the end of trial, on Tuesday and Wednesday.
“Charges against them include attempting to orchestrate an act of terrorism, obstructing justice for refusing to surrender mobile phone, obstructing administration of law, accepting a bribe and offering a bribe,” reads the statement, adding that they “deny all charges”.
The Joint Opposition also noted that “the charges and proceedings are highly irregular, violate the Constitution, and were investigated under illegal state of emergency powers, depriving detainees of fundamental rights guaranteed under the Constitution”.
“While farcical investigations were carried out by the Maldives Police Service, some were investigated without the presence of their lawyers. MP Faris Maumoon was brutalised and assaulted while the police forced him out of his cell in Dhooindhoo detention center to present him to an investigation without his lawyers. Former President Gayoom was summoned to court and kept in a room alone for 7 hours on Tuesday and the hearing was cancelled. He was later brought back for remand hearing on Wednesday. The Chief Justice and others remain in solitary confinement,” said the statement.
Furthermore, it noted that detainees “have been subjected to cruel and inhumane treatment in custody,” adding that “they are forced to drink water from a tap in the toilet and are deprived of adequate medical treatment”.
The statement also highlighted that “detainees are obstructed from access to lawyers and the authorities routinely harass lawyers and arbitrarily suspend lawyers” and that the lawyer to the Chief Justice had “found a recording device underneath her chair during a confidential meeting with her client”.
It said that the state of emergency was declared unlawfully, and “was used to further deepen [President] Yameen’s grip on power and lifting of it does not change the worrying direction of travel in the Maldives,” and that the regime “continues to use the parliament to rubber stamp laws to legitimize the dictatorship”. It added that “the entire judiciary has been brought under Yameen’s control”.
The Joint Opposition further called on the international community to take swift action on the Maldives, “including the imposition of targeted sanctions against regime officials”.
In a tweet posted earlier on Thursday, leader of the Maldivian Democratic Party, former President Mohamed Nasheed said that President Yameen had lifted the state of emergency “because he now has no need for it,” adding that full dictatorship in the “new normal” in the Maldives.
