:: Dhivehi Observer :: Peoples Press ::

"FAIR TRAVEL" - EU TO BLOCK AID AND TRAVEL TO PARADISE DEVA, Nirj ISLAND DICTATORSHIP

PRESS RELEASE

Strasbourg, 15 September 2004

Calling for the immediate release of political prisoners in the Maldive Islands, the most powerful Members of the European Parliament, representing all political groups, and 455 million people from 25 Member States, made clear that it is "totally unacceptable" for the EU to give aid of millions of Euros to ensure the survival of a 25-year-long dictatorship.

An All-Party "urgency" motion, tabled for this week's European Parliament plenary by key European Parliament figures (listed below), demands the immediate release of moderate pro-democracy opposition members, arrested in mid-August by Maldives President Maumoon Abdul Gayyoom. Currently, some 80 people remain imprisoned without trial or legal representation, amidst credible reports that they are being tortured.

"It is essential that maximum international pressure is applied to ensure these innocent people’s release," said the MEPs." They are in grave danger, and represent the islands' democratic future." "After a month of terror on the Maldives, the EU should not hesitate in blocking any further payment of non-essential elements of the 2m Euro aid budget to these islands, nor in banning Maldivian Members of Government and officials from entering into the Member States of the European Union in the current situation," they said.

The poverty of the 339,330 islanders in the archipelago is appalling. Hotel rooms in the Maldives typically cost a multiple of a hundred or even 200 times what most of the people had to live on each day and this money remains in the hands of Gayyoom's supporters.

"It is our responsibility to help the developing world expand its tourist industry. We cannot, however, continue to support a dictatorship which creams off the profits from tourism and hides them abroad," MEPs said.

Gayyoom has signed all sorts of international agreements, including one banning torture, and has flouted every one of them.

"Guidelines about tourism to exotic places like this, or Burma, or Cuba, are long overdue. Mass tourism often brings nothing to the local people. It is simply not good enough for travel companies to make deals with dictators of paradise island hell-holes and then shrug off criticism as if the conditions of the local people is none of their business. It is. Like fair trade we need fair travel now."

The senior MEPs involved in the campaign include: Geoffrey Van Orden (Conservative- UK, Vice-President of the Foreign Affairs Committee), Antonio Tajiani (Forza Italia- EPP-ED Leader of the Italian Delegation), Camiel Eurings (Christen Democratisch Appel- EPP-ED Leader of the Dutch Delegation), Nirj Deva (Conservative- UK, EPP-ED, Coordinator of the Overseas Development Committee), Anders Wijkman (Kristdemokraterna- EPP-ED, Leader of the Swedish Delegation), Jose Ribeiro e Castro (EPP-ED, Portugal, Member of the Development Committee), Emma Bonino (ALDE- Italy, former European Commissioner) and Michael Gahler (EPP-ED, Germany, Co-vice President of the Development Committee) and Max Van den Berg (PES, Netherlands, Co-vice President of the Development Committee).

CONTACT:

Daniel Hamilton

Political Secretary to Nirj Deva DL MEP,

Tel: + 44 7810 785924

Email: dan@nirjdeva.com

For more information please contact one of the following:

Mr Van Orden MEP on +32 2 2847332,
Mr Van den Burg MEP on +32 2 2847669,
Mr Tajani MEP on +32 2 2847396,
Mr Gahler MEP on +32 2 2847977,
Mr Wijkman MEP on +32 2 2847401.