Tuesday
23rd Apr 2024
Dhivehi Edition
A police officer trying to apprehend a journalist.
The Maldives Police Service have used violence against journalists.
Journalists for the Channel 13 TV channel who had been waiting on the second floor of LeSouq restaurant after yesterday’s opposition Coalition demonstration were subject to police brutality, they said.
According to the journalists, they were having a meal at 7pm, after the demonstration had ended, at LeSouq when a team of fifteen Special Operations officers arrived. The officers forced some of the journalists downstairs.
It is unknown whether the officers entered the premises with a court order or a warrant. The officers physically for ed Channel 13 reporter, Ihusan Hussain, and PNC Council Member Nabil Zameel out of the building.
According to eye-witnesses who told The Maldives Journal, some of the officers had attacked the journalists with chairs. The Police have since released the journalists, claiming that what had transpired had been a case of “mistaken identity”.
The Maldives Police Service has refused to comment further on the matter.