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Turkmenistan: Release Environmental Activist

19 Dec 2006 23:19:30 GMT
Source: Human Rights Watch

(New York, December 20, 2006) – Turkmen authorities should immediately and unconditionally release an environmental activist detained on Sunday, Human Rights Watch said today. On December 17, police seized Andrei Zatoka, 50, after he boarded a flight from Dashaouz, in northern Turkmenistan, headed for Ashgabat, the Turkmen capital. He was to continue on to Moscow the next day. A final SMS text message from him to his colleagues, sent at 10:00 a.m. local time, said that he was being removed from the airplane and was asking for help.

Zatoka was charged with violating public order, a misdemeanor offense, and was subjected to a penalty of five days of detention. Zatoka's current whereabouts in custody are unknown, and Turkmen authorities have denied his close friends access to him.

"Our greatest fear is for Zatoka's safety," said Holly Cartner, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "Turkmenistan has a long history of torturing and mistreating detainees in custody. Zatoka should be released immediately, and until that happens the Turkmen authorities should reveal where he is and allow him access to an attorney."

Zatoka, a biologist, is an environmental activist who co-founded the Dashaouz Ecological Club in 1992. A Turkmen court closed the organization in 2003 after the politically motivated imprisonment of its other co-founder, Farid Tukhbatullin. Tukhbatullin was released after an international campaign on his behalf and currently heads a human rights organization in exile. Since then, Zatoka has continued environmental activism, mostly by serving as an expert on the environment for Counterpart Consortium, a USAID-funded organization.

Zatoka was on his way to Moscow to meet with members of the International Social and Ecological Union and to spend the winter holidays with his family in Russia. Zatoka is a dual citizen of Russia and Turkmenistan.

"It isn't clear why Turkmen authorities detained him now, but there are sound reasons to believe the detention is arbitrary and politically motivated," said Cartner. "This is one of the most repressive governments in the world, and it commonly detains civic activists in order to intimidate them into stopping their work or ending contacts with the outside world."

In March, Turkmen authorities similarly detained two correspondents for Radio Liberty on "hooliganism" charges for 10 days, after which they were forced to sign a statement promising to stop all cooperation with the radio station.

In recent years Turkmen authorities have also resorted to the practice of removing civic activists from flights to prevent them from having contact with the outside world. Thousands of people, including perceived dissidents and their relatives, are on informal "blacklists" banning them from leaving the country.

Background

Turkmenistan, ruled by president-for-life Saparmurat Niazov, remains one of the most repressive and closed countries in the world. The government tolerates no dissent, allows no media or political freedoms, and has driven into exile or imprisoned members of the political opposition, human rights defenders and independent journalists. Dissidents are treated as criminals and subjected to internal exile, forced eviction from their homes, and confiscation of their personal property. Several have been forcibly detained in psychiatric hospitals. Torture is rampant in places of detention. In September, Olgsupar Muradova, a human rights defender and Radio Liberty correspondent, died in highly suspicious circumstances in prison after being convicted on politically motivated charges of illegal weapons possession.

The government has banned opera, ballet, the circus, the philharmonic orchestra and non-Turkmen cultural associations. Religious believers, particularly followers of faiths other than Sunni Islam and Russian Orthodoxy, have faced criminal prosecution, police beatings, deportation and, in some cases, demolition of their houses of worship.

Turkmenistan is a country whose leadership is sending it backwards in social and economic development. The country is rich in natural gas, but most of the population lives in grinding poverty. In 2004, President Niazov was reported to have ordered the dismissal of an estimated 15,000 healthcare workers and replaced them with military conscripts. Beginning in 2003, the government limited compulsory education to nine years, and it has cut back drastically on state-funded healthcare.

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Last updated:Tue Dec 19 23:20:29 2006