Questions have been raised about the UK's role in providing training for the Maldives police force, which has been accused by campaigners of committing human rights abuses amid a culture of "brutality".
Activists condemned policing in the Indian Ocean nation, where it says arbitrary arrests and torture are routine and police use pepper spray and beat innocent people.
It has emerged that officers in the Maldives Police Service (MPS) have been the recipients of training in management and community policing by the Scottish Police College (SPC), with approval from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO).
UK-based pressure group Friends of Maldives called on both organisations to sever their ties with the MPS following a report in the Guardian newspaper.
A statement from founder David Hardingham said: "The simple truth is that for too long the SPC, encouraged by the FCO, has provided a badge of respectability to one of the Indian Ocean's most notorious security services.
"In return, the human rights monsters of the Abdul Gayoom and 2012-coup eras have provided the SPC with a tidy earner.
"It's time for this relationship to end and a stain on the honourable name of Scottish policing to be removed.
"We urge the FCO to cancel its funding of the training programmes and for the SPC to sever its ties with the Maldives Police Service immediately, until the culture of brutality has been curtailed."
The Scottish Police Services Authority (SPSA), which oversees the Scottish Police College, said its relationship with the Maldives police force had been one of distance learning and that the non-profit organisation had no role in the day-to-day running of the force.
SPSA interim chief executive John Geates said: "The Scottish Police College has a history of delivering high-quality training in all aspects of policing to law enforcement agencies around the world, dating back to 2003."
