Malé, Maldives — The Opposition Coalition has stated that the government had forced them to violate the guidelines given by the Health Protection Agency (HPA) while they were carrying out their protest in accordance to the guidelines.
The statement from HPA comes after HPA announced to put an end to 10 people gathering at a certain place or at the road at once on February 13th. While the Opposition had held a gathering on the same night, it was broken up by the Police as the gathering had violated the guidelines given by HPA.
The Opposition Coalition released a statement regarding this and stated that last night, they had decided to hold the protest in front of the PPM Office peacefully by not exceeding the 10 people limit and by also maintaining social distancing.
However, as soon as we began our protest like that, it was the Police who gathered all of the people at the protest at one place in a way that it would violate the guidelines of HPA.
Opposition
The statement stated that they have noticed that the Police used invalid power in interrupting the protest and intentionally harmed the participants of the protest.
Opposition stated that they blame the government in the strictest manner for the methods used in harming the participants in the protest they held last night.
The Opposition called on the government to not cross the 32nd part of the 27th law of Maldives which states that Maldivian citizens can peacefully gather and protest to express their concerns and to stop ordering the Police to do things in ways that will harm the citizens.
