Parliament has today voted in favour of an amendment to the Immigration Act which bans entry into Maldives for those traveling on Israeli passports until the atrocities against Palestine is ceased.
Parliament has today voted in favour of an amendment to the Immigration Act which bans entry into Maldives for those traveling on Israeli passports until the atrocities against Palestine is ceased.
The motion to ban Israeli passport holders from entering Maldives was proposed by opposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) MP for South Galolhu Meekail Ahmed Naseem on May 29 last year. The bill was reviewed and passed in the Committee on Security Services (241 Committee) yesterday after having been stalled for 308 days.
The bill was passed unanimously in parliament today.
However, many major changes were brought to the bill before it was passed. The most major change is removing the clause in the bill that states that Israel passport holders, including dual citizens, will be banned entry to Maldives.
Instead, the bill, as passed, only bans those travelling to Maldives on Israeli passports. This change was brought in response to Maldives Immigration informing the committee that this is the only way the bill can be implemented.
As the bill stands now, Israeli passport holders can also enter the country if they have dual citizenship, and travel through passports from another country.
Although MDP protested against this change in the debate, they too voted in favour of passing the bill.
Maldives remains steadfast in calling on the international community to work towards bringing an end to the ongoing genocide in Palestine. While the parliament has passed the bill today, Maldives' cabinet of ministers has also previously decided on banning entry for Israeli passports.
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