Maldives

Current issues

Although a popular western tourist destination, the Maldives has some of the least religious freedom of any country in the world. The government maintains this dichotomy by most resorts being on uninhabited Islands where Maldivians are not allowed to live.

No Maldivian church is allowed to exist and expatriate Christians are closely monitored and only allowed to meet for prayer or worship behind closed doors, without Maldivians present.  In 2015 the government reminded officials that Christmas celebrations in tourist guesthouses on inhabited islands were prohibited.[1]

The government takes active steps to prevent the existence of the Bible or any Christian literature in the main Maldivian language of Dhivehi and any attempt to disseminate Christian material including through the post is treated as a criminal offence.[2] Christian literature and symbols such as crosses are seized by customs officials and those carrying them arrested.  In the past there have been reports of bookshops owners in Sri Lanka and India being threatened to stop them selling Christian literature in Dhivehi.[3] Internet censorship by the government also restricts the access to Christian content.

Islamic religious observance is enforced and police make multiple arrests for those not fasting during Ramadan.

There is no freedom to establish non-Muslim places of worship and even mosques are under the control of the Ministry of Islamic Affairs.

Apostasy is a criminal offence which the predominant Hanafi jurisprudence treats as a hudud offence i.e. as requiring the penalty set out in the Qur’an/Hadith i.e. execution. Although this does not appear to have been judicially carried out in the Maldives, the recognition of hudud crimes in the Penal Code[4] provides a degree of legitimisation for vigilante violence and murder of Christian converts.  In 2018 the Ministry of Islamic Affairs issued a policy paper stating that the biggest challenges the country faced were apostasy and Islamic blasphemy and set out a policy for dealing with apostates, beginning with “counselling” and progressing to prosecution.[5]

There is no freedom to preach or try to convince others of the truth of one’s beliefs and even Sunni Muslims must obtain a licence from the Ministry of Islamic Affairs before explaining religious principles in public and those delivering mosque sermons must be authorised by the government.

Only Sunni Muslims may become MPs, Cabinet ministers or President. It is also not possible for any non-Muslim individual to obtain Maldivian citizenship.

The constitution states that one of the key aims of education is to inculcate obedience to Islam and the national curriculum, which is implemented in both public and private schools incorporates Islam into all subject areas. The expatriate population, who constitute more than 20% of the population, are not allowed to open their own schools and Christian expatriates may only teach Christianity to their children in private.

Any criticism of Islam is illegal and in 2019 the government banned human rights NGO Maldivian Democracy Network on the grounds that its 2015 report on radicalisation in the Maldives had criticised Islam.  Maldivian Muslims who have spoken out have been accused of apostasy and received death threats. At least one Muslim human rights blogger has been murdered and police have been accused of paying insufficient attention to threats made against human rights activists.

In 2017 the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, Ahmed Shaheed, a former Maldivian diplomat, now a law academic at Essex University in the UK, was subjected to social media attacks accusing him of apostasy and calling for his beheading after the then ruling Progressive Party of the Maldives called on the Maldivian public to speak out against his “irreligious activities”. At the time the US Commission on International Religious Freedom commented that|:

“Coming from the ruling party, this is nothing less than government-sanctioned incitement to violence.  That is unacceptable in the Maldives or any other country.”[6]

Authorities have repeatedly urged Maldivians to “embrace Islamic principles” and often reiterate their goal of making the Maldives “100% Sunni Muslim”, implemented by the continuous development of “Islamic projects” throughout the country. In 2025, 90 projects of this type were carried out, which included the construction of 74 mosques, among other Islamic centres and facilities[7]. In February 2026, the Maldivian Minister for Islamic Affairs announced that the construction of the country’s biggest mosque to date would begin in September of that year to mark the “900^th year of the Maldives embracing Islam”[8]. 

Legal situation

The Maldivian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which forms part of the 2008 constitution (Articles 16-69, 262) does not include any reference at all to freedom of religion. 

The constitution states (Article 10)

“The religion of the State of the Maldives is Islam. Islam shall be the one of the basis of all the laws of the Maldives”.

It specifically prohibits (Article 9d) any non-Muslim from becoming a citizen. Whilst it also states (Article 9b) that no-one can be deprived of citizenship, suggestions that apostates could stripped of their citizenship have sometimes been made by politicians and media.

It also states (Article 16) that constitutional rights and freedoms are only guaranteed “in a manner that is not contrary to any tenet of Islam.” Freedom of thought (Article 27) is expressly limited to the communication of opinions and expression “in a manner that is not contrary to any tenet of Islam”, which is defined (Article 274) as being those found in the Qur’an and shari’a.

The constitution also states (Article 67) that it is the duty and responsibility of every citizen to “preserve and protect the state religion of Islam”.

The Parliament is constitutionally prohibited (Article 70) from passing “any law that contravenes any tenet of Islam,” (Articles 95.143,268) with the Supreme Court able rule on the constitutional validity of any statute. Additionally (Article 149) all Supreme Court judges are required to be educated in shari’a.

Only Sunni Muslims are allowed to stand for election (Article 73) to Parliament or (Article 109) to become President, (Article 130) a cabinet minister, or (Article 149) a judge.

In 2014 the Maldivian Parliament passed a new Penal Code which had been drafted by academics at the University of Pennsylvania in 2006 as part of the government’s response to widespread protests following the death of a man in police custody. This purported to maintain the principles of shari’a without violating international norms.[9] However, a section on hudud offences (s.1205) was added to this, which was not in the original University of Pennsylvania proposal:

“Offences for which punishments are prescribed in the Holy Quran. If an offender is found guilty of committing an offence for which punishments are predetermined in the Holy Quran, that person shall be punished according to Islamic Sharia and as prescribed by this Act and the Holy Quran.”

In Hanafi jurisprudence this includes the death penalty for apostasy. Although the death penalty has not been carried out for any offence since 1954, in 2017 the government announced it would resume. However, it has yet to implement this possibly due to the reputational damage this would cause to its tourist economy.

Although the new Penal Code only suggests (S.617,1002) a one year sentence for criticising Islam (i.e. Islamic blasphemy), it specifically allows (s.1003) a court to impose any more severe penalty “authorized by law” for any offence provided the court explains why it is doing so.

In September 2025, the Maldivian President passed a new law on Media and Broadcasting Regulation, which further imposes pressure on religious freedom and sparked outrage from journalists worldwide. This law states that the authors of publications contradicting Islam or its principles can be punished. A “Media and Broadcasting Commission” was formed and given authority to conduct investigations, issue warnings, order corrections or public apologies and impose fines. If the commission considers that media content is a threat to “Islam, national security, public health or general public well-being”, it can request other authorities to impose sanctions[10].

The UN Human Rights Office through its spokesperson, reacting to that law pointed out that “The Maldives Media and Broadcasting Regulation Law introduces rules incompatible with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which the Maldives is a State party, including overly broad content restrictions on the media, as well as on journalists and media workers. It also grants the new Media and Broadcasting Commission intrusive powers to conduct investigations, impose fines on media workers, and revoke and cancel licenses and permits of media outlets.”[11]

In practice, all other shari’a offences are still enforceable as the constitution (Article 142) requires courts to rule on the basis of shari’a on any matter where the constitution or law is silent.

Ideologies linked to persecution

Classical Islam although the Maldives converted to Islam in 1153 AD at the behest of its king, later when the Islamic geographer and jurist ibn Battuta visited it in the fourteenth century, he stated that while the entire population were Muslim, they were only loosely Islamic. He therefore set about enforcing strict shari’a enforcement, including in women’s dress.[12]

Dhimmitude: This theological concept occurs in the shar’ia textbooks of Classical Islam and is based on the treatment of non-Muslim minorities in early Islam. This allowed Christians and Jews as conquered peoples to live, subject to keeping significant restrictions. These included a specific prohibition on building or even repairing churches, only allowed them to worship in private behind closed doors and forbade them from having crosses or Christian books where Muslims could see them. The prohibition on even expatriate Christians meeting for worship, except behind closed doors and the confiscation of crosses by customs officials, closely parallels this.

Salafism: This seeks to create a society which closely follows the example of the first three generations of Muslims known as “the pious predecessors” (al-Salaf as-Ṣāliḥ). The influence of Salafism on some Maldivian Muslims is largely derived from Saudi Arabia.

Jihadist Islamism: In 2017 the Maldives was reported to have produced the highest per capita number of Islamic State jihadists of any country in the world.[13] Jihadists returning from locations such as Syria are often regarded as heroes and have a radicalising impact on society. Since 2017 there has been a small, but growing trend of jihadist violence in the Maldives against those perceived to be insufficiently Islamic.

Authoritariansim. Since the 1960s the government has sought to counter the influence of Saudi educated Maldivians and radical Islamic clerics by a combination of a) tight control of all religious activities and b) promotion and enforcement of Hanafi Islam by government approved Imams. However, as concepts such as jihad are part of the teaching of Classical Islam, this has failed to stem radicalisation.

Future risk

The return of jihadists as well as increasing Saudi influence creates the risk of both increasing vigilante violence against Christians and even greater enforcement of shari’a by the state. The latter could potentially include the future implementation of execution for apostasy. 

The authorities stated objective of creating a “100% Sunni Muslim” Maldivian identity further increases the pressure on Christians, completely leaving them out of the picture.

Church History

The Maldivian population is largely descended from peoples who migrated to the islands at the start of the Christian era, the same time as Christianity is thought to have arrived in South India. The evidence of very early Christianity in both South West India and Sri Lanka in the form of the Mar Thoma church and Nestorian Christianity which was well established by the mid sixth century raises the question of whether Christianity ever reached the Maldives in this period. 

The earliest recorded Maldivian Christians were in the sixteenth century when the sultan and some members of his family embraced Christianity under Portuguese influence.[14] In 1833 the Vatican authorised its new vicar apostolic in Pondicherry, South India, to send missionaries to the Maldives, although there is no evidence that any arrived.[15] During the time the Maldives was a British Protectorate (1887-1965) the entry of Christian missionaries appears to have been prohibited.[16]

In the 1990s the Maldivian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs warned Maldivians that they would be arrested if they listened to Christian radio which had recently begun being broadcast in Dhivehi from the Seychelles. In 1998 the Evangelical Alliance of Sri Lanka reported that around 50 Maldivian Christians had been arrested and were being held in solitary confinement at the prison on the island of Dhoonidhoo and were likely to be subjected to torture.[17]

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