Human rights in the Maldives

Vice President of the MaldivesHussain Mohamed Latheef People's Majlis Speaker Abdul Raheem AbdullaDeputy Speaker Ahmed Nazim Presidential elections Parliamentary elections Referendums Others Minister Moosa Zameer Human rights in the Maldives, an archipelagic nation of 417,000 people off the coast of the Indian Subcontinent,[1] is a contentious issue.

However, following the implementation of the Anti-Defamation and Freedom of Expression Act in August 2016, the threats posed to the media and opposition critics escalated further.

The act imposes significant fines for content or speech that is deemed to contradict Islamic tenets, jeopardize national security, challenge social norms, or infringe upon the rights, reputation, or good name of others during Yameen Rasheed's tenure.

[5] President Yameen's government has employed an alarming tactic of leveraging broad and ambiguously worded laws to target, apprehend, and incarcerate dissenting voices.

Moreover, the government has imposed stringent limitations on assemblies, resulting in the prohibition or severe restriction of peaceful rallies and protests.

[6]1 Amidst Abdulla Yameen's time in office, accusations of human rights transgressions came to light, accompanied by the imprisonment of several opposition politicians, among them former president Mohamed Nasheed.

At least three people were sentenced for association with the former president, and at least one – Mohamed Ismail Manniku Sikku, the former Director of Civil Aviation – was banished to an uninhabited atoll for "ten years and a day".

[8] The president considered responsible for the human rights gains in 2009–2010,[2] Mohamed Nasheed, resigned after weeks of protests led by police and was placed under house arrest.

Apostasy and atheism are also outlawed and those who identify as or accused of being apostates or atheists are punishable by death by Maldivian law (though unenforced) and are often subject to vigilante violence or attacks with little or no consequences for perpetrators by the authorities.

[14] A report by the Maldivian Democracy Network published a report in 2016 investigating radicalism in the Maldives, outlined the extremist ideas cited in textbooks and sermons and controversial theologies promoted in them, as well as radical ideologies prominent in the country was heavily condemned by the extremist religious establishment and disseminators,[15] leading to the organization being banned from continuing its operations without due process and forced into exile.

[2] On 14 December 2011, a group of ten men attacked peaceful demonstrators in Malé calling for religious tolerance.

Sufi Ismail Khilath Rasheed sustained a skull fracture and was later arrested as his calls for tolerance were unconstitutional.