Maldives quits Commonwealth over human rights row

The Maldives has announced it will withdraw from the Commonwealth, accusing it of interfering in domestic affairs and of treating it “unfairly and unjustly”.

The 53-nation group had warned the Maldives of possible suspension if it failed to show progress on improving democracy.

“The decision to leave the Commonwealth was difficult, but inevitable,” the Maldives foreign ministry said in a statement. “Regrettably, the Commonwealth has not recognised progress and achievements that the Maldives accomplished in cultivating a culture of democracy in the country and in building and strengthening democratic institutions.

“[The Commonwealth] had sought to become an active participant in the domestic political discourse in the Maldives, which is contrary to the principles of the charters of the UN and the Commonwealth.”

It added that President Abdulla Yameen’s government had introduced several measures aimed at promoting human rights and strengthening the rule of law.

The Commonwealth’s secretary-general Baroness Scotland said she was saddened by the Maldives’ decision to quit the bloc.

“We hope that this will be a temporary separation and that Maldives will feel able to return to the Commonwealth family and all that it represents in due course,” she said in a statement.

The Commonwealth ministerial action group has been scrutinizing the Maldives since former president Mohamed Nasheed was ousted from power in 2012 in what his supporters say was a coup.

The Indian Ocean nation became a multiparty democracy in 2008 after decades of autocratic rule, but anti-government protestors have expressed fears that they could lose their new-found freedoms.

A strict defamation law came into force last August, with harsh punishments for comments or actions considered insulting to Islam or which “contradict general social norms”, The death penalty is also being reintroduced, after a 60-year unofficial moratorium.

The Commonwealth has in the apst suspended some of its members, including Fiji, Pakistan, Nigerian and Zimbabwe, over government oppression or violence against citizens. It has never expelled any country from the bloc, but some have withdrawn, including Zimbabwe in 2003 and The Gambia in 2013.