Last month the Commonwealth put the Maldives on six months notice, “to address concerns including the detention and prosecution of opposition leaders, meddling with the judiciary and undermining democratic institutions”. The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative said the move was a way of “saying you’re no longer committed to democracy and rule of law”.
The Maldives has announced it will leave the Commonwealth after mounting pressure from other members over corruption and its human rights record. The decision to leave was “difficult but inevitable” and claimed it had been “unjustly and unfairly” treated by the organisation’s Commonwealth ministerial action group.
Human rights have been deteriorating since the government took power in a coup in 2012. A recent al-Jazeera documentary, alleges the country’s current President Abdulla Yameen and other senior government members, had been involved in money laundering and tampering with judges.
Commonwealth secretary general, Patricia Scotland said, “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.”
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