(CPJ/IFEX) – CPJ wishes to use the occasion of President Clinton’s upcoming talks with President Saparmurad Niyazov to focus attention on the repressive media conditions in Turkmenistan. CPJ is greatly alarmed by the total state control of the media in Turkmenistan, the lack of an independent press or any alternative reporting and a general climate […]
(CPJ/IFEX) – CPJ wishes to use the occasion of President Clinton’s upcoming
talks with President Saparmurad Niyazov to focus attention on the repressive
media conditions in Turkmenistan. CPJ is greatly alarmed by the total state
control of the media in Turkmenistan, the lack of an independent press or
any alternative reporting and a general climate of intolerance directed
against opposition voices.
President Niyazov’s dictatorial regime has not allowed any dissident
movement to develop in Turkmenistan in the post-Perestroika years, says CPJ.
Freedom of speech violations against local and foreign reporters have not
diminished since 1992. The government-controlled television and press
provide few details on the country’s political and social troubles; instead
they are forced to pledge their loyalty to the President, who has labeled
himself “the father of all Turkmen people.” Today, in one of the most
isolated and underdeveloped countries of the former Soviet Empire, security
authorities are free to confiscate foreign newspapers, tap foreign
reporters’ telephones, and harass those reporters who do not follow their
official itinerary.
Apart from the official media, and sporadic Russian broadcasts, which rarely
provide in-depth coverage of the situation in the country, the only
alternative, non-state source of information in the Turkmen language is
Radio Liberty (RL). According to CPJ, RL journalists have been continuously
harassed, beaten, and forced into exile by Turkmen authorities over the past
few years.
One of the first conditions for a transition to democracy is the nurturing
of a free and independent press. The following is a list of cases, confirmed
by Radio Liberty’s Turkmen Service, that is representative of the repressive
climate for the press under Niyazov’s authoritarian rule.
17 April 1998
Turkmen opposition leader, former Foreign Minister and former RL reporter,
Avdy Kuliev, was detained by Turkmen authorities upon his arrival in
Ashgabat from Moscow. Kuliev was charged with an attempt to organize a coup,
extortion, and an unauthorized protest rally in July 1995. He decided to
return to Turkmenistan after President Niyazov announced in Parliament that
he would allow opposition parties to operate in the country. Kuliev is a
Russian citizen and he met with representatives of the Russian Embassy in
Ashgabat who intend to protest his detention to Turkmen authorities.
17 April 1998
Muhammet Berdiyev, a stringer for RL’s Turkmen service, was asked by Mohamad
Nazar, its director, to cover the arrival of Avdy Kuliev. Fifteen minutes
later, Berdiyev received a phone call from authorities forbidding him to go
to the airport. Berdiyev’s phone appears to have been tapped. The reporter
is one of the two RL stringers who sign their names under the stories they
submit all others write anonymously or use pseudonyms.
12 February 1998
Muhammet Berdiyev, who fled Turkmenistan to work in Moscow, was detained in
his
apartment, handcuffed, and beaten by local police. He said he was accused of
participation in a plot to harm the state. A few days later, on 23 February,
he was attacked again by unidentified men with iron rods, who beat him
severely. Berdiyev was hospitalized for 43 days.
October-November 1997
The RL stringer Yovshan Annakurban, the other journalist who does not write
anonymously, was held in a prison controlled by the Committee for National
Security (the former KGB). He was taken into custody by Turkmen police at
the Ashgabat airport when boarding an airplane to Prague to attend a
journalistic seminar. Annakurban was released on 13 November 1997, but was
kept under surveillance and intimidated. Shortly after Annakurban’s arrest,
the state-run newspaper Turkmenistan published an article criticizing the
RL.
7 September 1997
The Turkmen Foreign Ministry complained through the U.S. Embassy in Ashgabat
to
the U.S. State Department that RL’s Turkmen Service tried to overthrow
Niyazov. The Foreign Ministry stated that RL used Niyazov’s absence to
attempt to overthrow his regime. At that time Niyazov was recovering form
heart surgery in a Munich hospital.
10 August 1995
Khudaberdi Khallyev, a consultant for the RL Turkmen Service, was kidnapped,
taken to the outskirts of Ashgabat, severely beaten, and abandoned.
October-November, 1994
In November, RL’s Turkmen Service freelance correspondents Murat Esenov and
Halmurat Soyunov were detained in Moscow, and Khudaberdi Khallyev, another
RL stringer, was detained in Ashgabat. In October, Murat Esenov was severely
beaten by at least six assailants in Moscow and was hospitalized with head
injuries. The attack came after Niyazov called upon the heads of the
Interior Ministry, the Defense Ministry, the Supreme Court, the National
Security Committee, and the border troops administration to apply even
stricter measures against “outsiders” who “are looking with envy at
Turkmenistan.”
All of the above incidents display an ominous trend: the Turkmen government
has tried to silence the single alternative source of information in the
country, the Radio Liberty Turkmen Service.
CPJ is deeply troubled by the above mentioned incidents which give
Turkmenistan one of the worst records for press freedom in the former
Eastern bloc and one of the worst media climates in the world.
Recommended Action
Send appeals to President Clinton:
developments in
Turkmenistan during his talks with President Niyazov
alternative reporting in Turkmenistan, a sign of serious deterioration in
the development of democratic institutions in that country
Appeals To
President William J. Clinton
The White House
Washington, D.C.
United States of America
Fax: +202 456 2883
Please copy appeals to the source if possible.