President Abdulla Yameen has criticized the Joint Opposition’s pledge to ensure unjustly imprisoned prisoners freedom, claiming it as a promise to ‘free criminals’.

In a campaign rally in Nolhivaram island of Haa Dhaalu atoll, President Yameen spoke on the nature of justice and penalty for crimes and expressed his opinion that the pledge to free said prisoners is detrimental to judicial integrity.

“Punishment is not a recent invention, it is as old as society and even Islam teaches the importance of it to society, to defend the rights of the innocent. It is not something I created, it is not something this government did, it is something that has always existed because society cannot do without it” Yameen said.

In his speech, the incumbent president criticized Supreme Court justices Abdulla Saeed and Ali Hameed, who are in prison over accusations of accepting bribes from his political opponents, as having supported the Joint Opposition’s alleged conspiracy to oust him out of ‘greed for land and apartments’.

The Joint Opposition and the government’s several countries have expressed concern over the arrest and prosecution of the government’s political rivals and their presidential candidate, longstanding MP Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, has promised judicial reform.

The ruling party campaign rally was held as part of President Yameen’s ongoing trips to Haa Alif and Haa Dhaalu atolls.