Maldives police arrested 193 people including the leader of an opposition party after clashes broke out on Friday with protesters demanding the government free the Indian Ocean archipelago’s ex-president from prison.
Those arrested include Sheikh Imran Abdulla, a leader of the small but influential Islamic Adhaalath Party, as well as the chairperson of the main opposition party, the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), a police official said yesterday.
The MDP is the party of Mohamed Nasheed, a former president who was jailed in March for ordering the arrest in 2012 of a judge in a trial that was slammed as deeply flawed by the international community.
The imprisonment of Nasheed, who became the Maldives first democratically elected president in 2008, has triggered daily protests in the popular honeymooners’ destination.