Nasheed urged tourists to boycott Maldives: Financial Times

The Financial Times has reported that former President Mohamed Nasheed urged tourists to boycott Maldives.

“I’d say to anyone who has booked a holiday to the Maldives: cancel it. And to anyone who is thinking of booking one: please don’t bankroll an illegitimate government,” Nasheed told the FT.

Nasheed went on to say that the Muslim nation was ‘facing a real threat of talibanisation’.

Referring to he himself having allowed senior Taliban figures into the Maldives in 2010, Nasheed said, “We hosted the Taliban for peace talks, but we weren’t allowing Maldivians to attend their training camps.”

Responding to Nasheed’s claims, government Spokesperson Abbas Adil Riza said that radicalism was most evident in Maldives during Nasheed’s regime.

“The years when Mr Nasheed was in power were the most radical in the history of the Maldives. His statements against Islam made to curry favour with the west only served to radicalise the people,” Mr Riza told the FT.