Yearbook 2016
Maldives. According to
countryaah, the current population of Maldives is 540,555. President Abdulla Yamin continued during the
year to strengthen his grip on power by silencing or in
various ways disposing of political opponents. Former Vice
President Ahmed Adib, who was arrested in October 2015 and
subsequently deposed, was sentenced in June to 15 years in
prison for high treason. He was convicted of participating
in a blast attack on Yamin's boat for the purpose of
murdering the president, even though, according to an FBI
investigation, it was not possible to prove that the
explosion aboard the boat was really a bomb attack.
In July, Foreign Minister Dunya Maumun announced that she
was resigning. She explained her departure with President
Yamin's intention to reintroduce the death penalty,
something Maumun is opposed to. The death penalty remains in
the country's penal code but is de facto abolished since
1952. In November 2015, a decision was made in the High
Court that the president would no longer have the right to
convert the death penalty to life imprisonment and in June
was suspended from an approved execution method alongside
injection. of poison. In July, the Supreme Court affirmed
that the death penalty it imposes should be final. The fact
that Maumun is the daughter of former President Maumun Abdul
Gayum, as well as Yamin's half-brother, was interpreted as
an intensified power struggle between Gayum and Yamin.
Yamin also tried in other ways to silence the opposition
to his rule. In July, a court issued a two-year professional
ban on several journalists who started an online magazine.
The journalists were formerly employed by Haveeru magazine
but resigned in March when the editorial freedom of the
editor-in-chief was circulated in response to
regime-critical articles. In August, it became lawful to
punish someone. Parliament's decision was described by the
opposition as a means for Yamin to put his mouth on his
critics.
The government announced in October that the country
would leave the British Commonwealth. The decision was
prompted by the "unfair treatment" the Maldives faced when
the country was criticized for human rights violations.
Perhaps the most notable case since Yamin came to power in
2013 is the imprisonment of former President Mohamed Nashid.
He was allowed in January to travel to the UK to undergo
medical treatment there. The Maldivian government reacted
outraged when Nashid met British Prime Minister David
Cameron. In May, Nashid was granted political asylum in the
UK.
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