Rights group calls for the release of activists

A Turkmen rights group has called for the immediate release of two of its activists and a journalist from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), who were arrested earlier this month on what the group says are false charges of working to destabilise the Turkmen government. “We call upon all international organisations and rights activists, particularly those in Europe, to demand that the Turkmen government release these three individuals,” Tajigul Begmedora, head of the Turkmen Helsinki Federation (THF), told IRIN from the Bulgarian port city of Varna. Annakurban Amanklychev was arrested on 16 June in the Turkmen capital, Ashgabat, while Yelena Ovezova and RFE/RL freelancer Ogulsapar Muradova were arrested in the same city on 18 June. One day later, Murodova’s three children were also arrested in what rights groups describe as open harassment against activists and an unveiled attempt to curtail their work. According to THF, eye witness reports suggest that the activists and journalist are currently being held in harsh conditions at a detention centre in the Ministry of National Security (MNS) where they have been denied access to toilets or visits by relatives. The exiled rights group also said that it had information that two of its members were being drugged in an effort to coerce confessions. “These people were officially working as rights activists and journalists in Turkmenistan,” Begmedora said, noting that like all nationals of the former Soviet Union, they had the right to attend human rights workshops. “It is obvious that the authorities are clamping down on any dissent and freedom of speech and this incident is the result of that policy,” she said, warning that the ultimate goal of the authorities was to stifle the work of NGOs, even those working abroad as there were virtually no NGOs in the largely desert, oil-rich nation. The incident comes at a time when Turkmen security officials claim that they have successfully foiled an opposition plot aimed at destabilising the country. In comments broadcast on national television on 19 June, National Security Minister Geldymukhammed Ashirmukhammedov said a number of foreign nationals and diplomats were involved in the alleged conspiracy, including a staff member of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the French embassy in Ashgabat. Ashirmukhammedov said three Turkmen nationals were also arrested for involvement in the plot, which involved illegally collecting information with the aim of spreading dissatisfaction among the country’s 5 million inhabitants, AFP reported. Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov, who has ruled the country single-handedly since the collapse of the former Soviet Union in 1991, has long been criticised by human rights groups. Following an alleged attempt on his life in November 2002, his tolerance for dissent has only worsened, with activists reporting incidents of widespread arrests, confiscation of property, forced eviction and exile, torture and long-term imprisonment of political opponents, dissidents and their family members.