Maldives to Leave Commonwealth Over Allegations of Rights Abuses
NEW DELHI — The government of the Maldives announced on Thursday that it would leave the Commonwealth, saying it had been treated “unjustly and unfairly” over questions about its human rights record.
In September, the Commonwealth warned that it might suspend the country for what the organization described as its failure to address several threats to democratic governance.
After three decades of authoritarian rule, the Maldives elected Mohamed Nasheed as president in 2008 in its first democratic election. In 2012, he was pushed out of office in what he said was a military coup and imprisoned under an antiterrorism law that critics say was abused. In the last year, the government of the current president, Abdulla Yameen, has prosecuted officials and members of the political opposition amid a growing international outcry.
At its September meeting in New York, the Commonwealth underlined six areas of concern in the Maldives, including the lack of a political dialogue among governing and opposition parties, the detention of political prisoners, the use of terrorism laws against political opponents, and the independence of the judiciary.
Amnesty International said in a statement Thursday that “human rights have been in a complete free fall” over the last couple of years in the Maldives.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/14/world/asia/maldives-to-leave-commonwealth-over-allegations-of-rights-abuses.html?ref=asia
