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The TIMES

The “partial boycott” campaign is clever because it allows us to continue to visit a beautiful and popular country, which is dependent on tourism, with a clear conscience.

Cath Urquhart Editorial

Tom Chesshyre Report

Ethical Consumers, May/June 2006

Friends of Maldives asks that tourists continue to visit the country, but stay away from a few resorts.

See "Paradise Lost"

Lonely Planet 6th Edition:

We support this cleverly targeted campaign and suggest you do too; it fully supports tourism in the Maldives conscious that it’s the country's only major industry, but it tells adherents to avoid about one fifth of the resorts which bring ministers and other senior government figures significant revenue each year….

See FOM Press Release

Sustainable Travel International

Regional pressure group Friends of the Maldives (based in Britain) is urging travellers and travel companies to boycott resorts in the Indian Ocean ‘paradises’ that are directly connected with the regime in power – a government with an appalling political rights record condemned internationally by organisations like Amnesty International. The resorts in question are owned by present and past government members and in some cases members of their families.

IFEX

To pressure the Maldivian government, Friends of Maldives has decided to target the archipelago's tourism industry (500,000 foreign visitors a year) and distributed more than 3,000 flyers about Latheef at last month's World Travel Market in London.

TRAVEL VIDEO TV

Friends of Maldives are cooperating with the pressure group, Tourism Concern, in London in a campaign to alert major tour operators, politicians and Maldivians living abroad to the problems now facing the country. Several MPs in London have tabled Questions in Parliament asking for action from the UK government to promote greater democracy in the Maldives.

The ECONOMIST

There are also accusations that the tourism industry has favoured the wealthy and cronies of the regime. Friends of the Maldives, a British pressure group, has campaigned for a boycott of resorts linked to the government. Mr Shougee acknowledges that the old system of awarding leases for resorts was open to accusations of favouritism.

See article "Maldives Waving or Drowning?"

The Guardian

Friends of Maldives have called for a "selective boycott" of around 20 resorts whose owners have close ties to the regime.

See article by Hary Kunzru

Peter Foster's Blog, The Telegraph

For now, if you must book a holiday to the Maldives, I urge you (and Mr Cruise) to visit the 'Friends of Maldives' website  which lists those islands which are run by the president or his direct supporters, and boycott them.

Full Article

      
Reporters Without Borders

On 10 December, Friends of Maldives launched a campaign for tourists to boycott specific named resorts in the Maldives that are linked to leading members of the regime.

RSF - FOM Joint- Press Release

AGAINST THE BOYCOTT

MATI denounces FoM's Maldives Tourism Boycott campaign