Police disbursed opposition gathering without court order

Police have on Wednesday disbursed an opposition Maldivian Democratic Party’s (MDP) gathering without a court order.

Special Operations (SO) Officers had entered an established gathering site for members of the party in Henveiru of Malé City at around 23:15 and forcibly turned off their sound system. The two-story building is used to hold daily party gatherings.

State regulations on public assembly allow the party to continue its gathering until midnight. Spokespeople to the Maldives Police Service (MPS) had not responded to calls at the time of press.

Kulhuddufushi MP Abdul Ghafoor Moosa described officers to have ‘shamefully’ barged into the premises and pulled out the power cables for their speakers.

“We did not know what was initially going on” MP Moosa recounted “What law do they think gives them the power to do this? They feel so comfortable storming in and disbanding our gatherings but so dutifully protect the gatherings of their paymasters, it is just shameful”.

Vaikaradhoo MP Mohamed Nazim, who was at the gathering when officers entered, called on authorities to refrain from such ‘unconstitutional’ acts.

“They did not even have a court order, they just stormed in, and without even requesting that we turn down our speakers, just pulled out the cables, this just cannot be accepted” he said.

The Police had last week raided the premises on the grounds that the MDP had printed and was storing banners and posters that depict criticism of impending government dealings with Saudi Arabia.

MDP later released a statement condemning the raid as a baseless and ‘cowardly’ attempt to frighten supporters and silence opposition, the party said officers had confiscated equipment being used for their local council elections.

The Police had not found any items of the nature described in its court order for the raid and thus confiscated whatever officers deemed of relevance.

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