On Monday, November 6, the United Nations Human Rights Council will closely evaluate Turkmenistan’s rights record during the country’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR). This is a rare opportunity, as Turkmenistan’s extremely repressive government routinely punishes anyone inside the country or abroad who dares to scrutinize its actions. 

The Human Rights Council should call Turkmenistan out for failing to make progress on commitments it made during its 2018 UPR, when the government agreed to ensure freedom of expression and access to information, allow civil society and human rights defenders to work freely, and to end torture, enforced disappearances, and arbitrary arrests and detention, and investigate all relevant allegations. The government also supported a recommendation to provide information to families of persons reported disappeared in custody.

Dozens of people have been victims of enforced disappearance in Turkmenistan. They have vanished, after their arrests and closed trials, in Turkmenistan’s prisons, where conditions are dire, and their families having no information about their whereabouts or fate. The government has failed to provide information even on those disappeared persons whose prison sentences expired in the past five years.

Authorities have doubled down on intermittently blocking access to the internet. While they have freed some individuals sentenced on bogus politically motivated charges, they have imprisoned others for publicly expressing critical views and harassed and intimidated peaceful activists abroad as well as their relatives in Turkmenistan. The authorities have also continued to restrain people’s right to freedom of movement, and in recent years have denied access to passport renewal services via diplomatic missions for its citizens abroad.

Following Monday’s review, concerned governments should not wait until the next UPR session to urge Turkmenistan to respect human rights. Instead, they should find ways to regularly push back against the government’s abuses.

As a activist, from my point of view, Turkmenistan’s ongoing human rights violations, particularly the enforced disappearances and restrictions on freedom of expression, are deeply troubling. The international community must take a firm stand and demand accountability from the Turkmen government. Continuous pressure and monitoring are essential to ensure that these issues are not swept under the rug once the UPR session concludes.

The news was sourced from the official Human Rights Watch website.

Ayna Matiyeva

03/11/2023