Turkey-Bound Citizens Of Turkmenistan Must Find ‘Guarantors’ And Pledge ‘No Activism’
Ashgabat Exodus: Turkmen Seek Passports To Leave Poverty-Stricken Country
February 28, 2023
Release of Turkmen Physician Khursanai Ismatullaeva Brings Hope Amid Calls for Justice
April 19, 2023
A long line of Turkmen wait outside the offices of the country’s Migration Service in the eastern city of Turkmenabat in Lebap Province. (file photo)
Turkmen citizens going to Turkey are being asked to sign statements that they will not engage in anti-government activities and must find “guarantors” liable for their trip, according to a rights organization focused on Turkmenistan.
The latest travel agony for Turkmen strengthens the argument that anti-regime protests by Turkmen expats motivated the authoritarian regime in Ashgabat to ask Turkey to be excluded from Ankara’s list of countries subject to a visa waiver.
The Turkmen government has denied that is the case, claiming instead a desire to ensure the security of its citizens abroad.
Turkish authorities imposed new visa restrictions on Turkmen citizens in September.
The Turkmenistan Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights (THF) on March 5 published the transcript of an interview between two foreign-based Turkmen bloggers and a Turkmen citizen who traveled to Turkey last month.
The citizen, who used the name Gadam, said that the “guarantor” for a citizen’s trip should have an income of at least 2,000 manats ($100 according to the black-market rate).
“A visa will not be issued without a letter of guarantee. If a person does not return home [before the visa expires] the guarantor faces dismissal [from his job],” said Gadam.
RFE/RL’s Turkmen Service has confirmed that information, as well as reports that the guarantor should be an employee of the state — a fact that makes finding such a person a challenge for Turkmen without family members in government.
On the nonactivism pledge, Gadam recalled that, having received his Turkish visa, he was called into his local police station, where he was made to sign a document promising “not to participate in rallies and protests criticizing our government [or] in discussions on political issues that are held on the Internet.”
That includes a prohibition on “liking” politically inappropriate videos posted online, he said.
In Freedom House’s annual report, which was released on March 9, Turkmenistan was once again included in the watchdog’s “worst of the worst” for civil liberties, edged out only by Syria and South Sudan.
Turkmen line up outside a grocery story to buy food in the capital, Ashgabat, amid an ongoing economic crisis. …
But it is the country’s grueling, near decade-long economic crisis that has strengthened emigration to Turkey, where the migration service recorded more than 220,000 Turkmen in January.
That trend only slowed thanks to a near two-year ban on regular flights to and from the country as part of anti-coronavirus measures that were eased last year.
And it was Turkmenistan’s inconceivable claim to have no cases of the disease that first fired up Turkmen activists, who began protests outside Turkmenistan’s diplomatic missions abroad, most notably outside its consulate in Istanbul, in 2020.
The demonstrations soon began to target other ills in Ashgabat’s authoritarian system.
Several Turkmen activists were detained in 2021 and threatened with deportation by Turkish authorities, though they were later released.
An activist
Last year, five activists were injured after being attacked on the grounds of Turkmenistan’s Istanbul consulate, where they were trying to submit a letter to new President Serdar Berdymukhammedov highlighting the human rights crisis in their homeland.
They alleged that one of the men who attacked them was an employee of Turkmenistan’s mission.
MARCH 11, 2023 Ayna Matiyeva
