Police remove underwater sculptures from the Fairmont hotel in move critics say is aimed at 'courting religious vote'.
Male, Maldives - Guests on a five-star honeymoon resort in the Maldives caught a rare glimpse of the decades-long political and religious tensions rocking this island nation when policemen - armed with axes, concrete saws and ropes - stormed the Fairmont Maldives to destroy model human figures that had been deemed un-Islamic.
The unprecedented raid on Friday came as President Abdulla Yameen railed against what he said was a plot by the "Western-backed opposition" to undermine Islam in the Maldives ahead of ahighly charged election on Sunday.
Standing in a tropical storm on the tarmac in a half-completed airport in northern Maldives, Yameen lambasted his opponents for promoting "Western standards" that "are intolerable to our society and values".
"I bring you development and prosperity," he declared as the rain and wind whipped coconut palms in the distance.
"What does the opposition offer? They talk of democracy ... What do they do in the name of Western-backed democracy? They protest to seek rights for homosexuals."
He made no mention of the police raid on the resort.
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