Tourism threatened in Maldives
A rise in Islamic militancy poses an unprecedented threat to the Maldives' status as South Asia's most upmarket holiday destination, but the government is determined to beat the extremists.
The first concrete sign of trouble in the archipelago traditionally seen as the holiday-maker's paradise came last month, when 12 foreign tourists including a honeymooning British couple were wounded in a bomb attack.
President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, an Islamic scholar, responded quickly, ordering a major crackdown in the moderate Sunni Muslim nation of 330,000.
While well-heeled tourists are welcome, Gayoom has made it clear Muslim clerics eager to bring Taliban-style extremism to the turquoise blue lagoons and secluded tiny coral islands are not.
Gayoom decreed foreign clerics should not be allowed entry without special permission, barred women from covering themselves from head to toe, and ordered that educational qualifications from foreign madrassas, or Islamic seminaries, will not be recognised.
Comments