World Report 2008: Turkmenistan
3 April 2008
1 minute read
The authorities in several Central Asian states have warned news outlets to tone down their coverage of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, or ignore it entirely.
“Turkmenistan has long been a closed country for independent human rights scrutiny. The pattern of persecution of relatives of activists who live abroad shows the lengths to which its government will go to keep the world from knowing the scale of the human rights violations there.”
When President Berdimuhamedov succeeded Saparmurad Niyazov in 2007, he tried to portray himself as a reformer committed to modernising his country but human rights are still being trampled underfoot ten years later.