Alcohol regulations sent to parliamentary committee

Following pressure from the public, NGOs and the Islamic ministry, the regulations that were to come into effect today and authorise the sale of alcohol at tourist hotels on inhabited islands were withdrawn by the ministry last week.

At a press conference today, Rasheed said he did not believe alcohol should be sold in an Islamic country, but liquor permits were given to expatriates and diplomats as required by the Vienna Convention.

“When I took over this ministry, I was not at all happy with the way our ministry was doing it,” he said. “So we started revising it. When we started revising it, the attorney general’s office, police, customs and the tourism ministry participated. The most important thing we considered in revising it was how common this had become in the country, especially in Male’.”