Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what recent discussions he has had with the UN on the political situation in the Maldives.

I have had no recent discussions with the UN on the political situation in the Maldives. However, there is regular engagement between UK and UN officials, including most recently meetings between the British High Commissioner and the UN Resident Coordinator to Maldives in February.

We remain extremely concerned about governance and human rights in the Maldives, not least freedom of expression and association, judicial independence, the arbitrary detention of political figures and the possible re-introduction of the death penalty. I raised these concerns with Maldivian Foreign Minister Dr Asim at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on 28 February.