Turkmenistan’s government imposes harsh restrictions on free expression and exerts total control over access to information. It allows no space for dissent and prohibits activity by unregistered nongovernmental organizations. Authorities continue to impose arbitrary foreign travel bans and engage in transnational repression including by denying Turkmens the ability to renew their passport abroad.

Many wrongfully imprisoned individuals remain behind bars, and the fate of dozens of victims of enforced disappearances remains unknown.

Shortages of subsidized food continue. Authorities restrict women’s and girls’ rights. Consensual same-sex conduct between men is a criminal offense under Turkmen law, punishable by a maximum two-year prison sentence.

Freedom of Movement, Denial of Passports

In 2024 Turkmen authorities continued to groundlessly bar people from boarding international flights or otherwise travel abroad. Obtaining biometric passports inside Turkmenistan has become an ordeal for many Turkmen citizens, with additional requirements imposed and waits as long as two years, unless one is willing to pay a bribe. The government tightly controls internal migration.

In September authorities orally ordered public sector workers to surrender their passports to prevent them from foreign travel. In August the administrations of two universities required newly admitted students to surrender their passports to prevent their foreign travel. Students of one university were required to sign a statement confirming they would not leave Turkmenistan until graduation or face expulsion.

On November 20, authorities forcibly hospitalized an independent journalist, Soltan Achilova, to prevent her from traveling to Geneva to attend human rights events, falsely claiming that she had an infectious disease. 

Treatment of Government Critics

Turkmen authorities do not tolerate any dissent or criticism. Civic activists and government critics, including those in exile and their families, face constant threat of government reprisal.

In June, security and law enforcement officers conducted unannounced searches at the homes of migrant workers who had returned from abroad. Officials summoned such individuals, confiscated their devices allegedly to identify “unreliable” citizens who might have worked with independent outlets or exiled dissidents, and held them in detention without water and food for several days.

Rovshen Klychev, who had openly criticized the government on social media and was deported from Türkiye to Turkmenistan in July 2023, was reportedly sentenced to 17 years in prison on unknown criminal charges.

In August, a court convicted Merdan Mukhamedov, an activist with an exiled political opposition group, on multiple criminal charges, including conspiracy to overthrow the government, in a closed trial, following his deportation from Türkiye in June. His sentence was not made public.

Dozens of people arrested in the late 1990s and early 2000s remain forcibly disappeared in Turkmen prisons. There are an estimated 96 continuing enforced disappearances, including at least 33 individuals whose prison terms expired between 2017 and 2024 but whose fates and whereabouts remain unknown. During its annual human rights dialogue with Turkmenistan in June 2024, the EU raised continued concerns about enforced disappearances and “a number of individual human rights cases,” stressing the importance of access by the International Committee of the Red Cross and UN special procedures.

Twenty-six men tried on a variety of charges in closed trials and sentenced to up to 25 years in 2017 for having links to the movement led by deceased US-based Turkish Sunni Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen, whom Türkiye blames for masterminding the 2016 attempted military coup in Türkiye, remained behind bars.

Freedom of Media and Information

There is no media freedom in Turkmenistan. Access to the internet remains severely limited, with more than 122,000 internet domains blocked countrywide.

Turkmen authorities continue to crackdown on users and providers of Virtual Private Networks (VPNs). In February, Balkan province authorities turned off internet service in the homes of people who use VPNs often and restored it only after users signed a written undertaking promising not to use VPNs. The authorities restored internet service to hundreds of residents only after the security services searched their phones for suspicious content. In one school, police searched students’ phones. They questioned the parents of students who had VPNs seeking evidence of engagement on certain social media on their devices. Authorities designated these families “unreliable.”

Women’s and Girls’ Rights

Abortions after five weeks of pregnancy remain outlawed. In August, authorities visited medical institutions, warning practitioners that performing abortions would result in loss of their diplomas. There are widespread reports of serious restrictions on women’s and girls’ autonomy. This includes arbitrary requirements, such as a minimum age of 35 to obtain drivers’ licenses, and, in Mary and Balkan regions, mandatory gynecological examinations for secondary school girls to verify their “moral purity.” So-called “virginity testing” is an abusive practice that is not merely unscientific, but a form of violence that may constitute torture.

In its sixth periodic report on Turkmenistan, in February 2024, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) expressed concern about these restrictions and practices. It also noted reports of pressure on women and girls to uphold societal gender stereotypes, lack of legislation criminalizing domestic violence, women’s and girls’ lack of access to adequate sexual and reproductive health services, and “forced virginity testing on young girls in cases of rape.”

Ayna Matiyeva

01/02/2025