India refusing entry for pro-government MP Ahmed Nihan is ‘no surprise’ given his staunch support for Maldives’ current contentious government, says former president Mohamed Nasheed.
Nasheed said this in a tweet after MP Ahmed Nihan was seized, detained, and questioned at an Indian airport before being asked to return to the Maldives.
The opposition leader’s tweet translates to, ‘It is no surprise India refused to grant a visa to the PG leader of a government that represses and arrests opposition leaders, dismantled the Supreme Court, besieged the parliament, disrupted the function of independent institutions, and laundered money through the central and national banks’.
Indian newspaper ‘The Wire’ reported that Nihan was told to ‘leave India on the next available flight’. The lawmaker told local journalists he had been bullied by the Indian government for his political beliefs, claiming that Indian immigration officers had even asked him which party he belonged to after he provided his credentials.
Nihan is one of the local parlaiment's staunchest supporters of the government, that has this year alone been subject to international condemnation, from the governments of several individual countries and the United Nations. In the local polticial sphere, Nihan is known for his strong rhetoric against Nasheed's party, professed 'infinite loyalty' to incumbent President Abdulla Yameen.
While Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj attested in a recent press conference that ties between the Maldives and India will ‘never break given our history and bilateral policy’, she said her government has provided continuous counsel regarding the country’s political situation.
“We have refrained from making some visits to the Maldives because our demands [regarding the political situation in the Maldives] have not been met, although there have no cuts in aid’, Minister Swaraj said at the conference.
President Yameen’s imposition of a 45-day state of emergency, that froze rights and allowed for arrest of political opponents and wantonly violent crackdown on protesters, caused a chorus of concern that was denounced by his government as ‘ignoring facts and ground realities’.
There have also been reports that India is concerned about the ‘Chinese influence’ Yameen’s dealing with them has allowed in the Indian ocean, especially given his signing of over a dozen agreements with China in a seminal visit last year.
