Human rights activists published a new list of disappeared in prisons of Turkmenistan
An updated list of victims of enforced disappearances in prisons of Turkmenistan was presented at the OSCE Human Dimension Meeting in Warsaw by the organization “Show them alive”.
“Compared to our previous publication of the list in September 2018, this updated list did not change the total number of documented cases of disappearances in prisons – 121 people, but several new names were added to the list,” human rights activists note. “The fate of several victims of enforced disappearances became known, and their names were removed from the report.
The new version of the list is supplemented by the names of Kemal Saparov and Kakadzhan Halbaev. They were Turkmen students who had studied in St. Petersburg and convicted in 2018 shortly after returning to Turkmenistan on vacation. Also it was included the name of Sultan Bebitov, convicted in 2013 in the case of Bakhrom Saparov’s group.
“In May 2019, Seyran Mamedov, convicted in 2004 for helping relatives of the “novemberists” to flee the country, was released at the end of his sentence. In this regard, his name is excluded from this edition of the list of disappeared. Ilham Bektemirov, released in December 2018, is also excluded from the updated list,” the report says.
Gulgeldy Annaniyazov, a civil activist, was removed from the updated list after he received a meeting with relatives in March 2019. At the beginning of March 2019, after the end of the 11-year sentence, Annaniyazov was transferred from the colony to the remote village of Karabogaz in northwestern Turkmenistan to live here under the control of the police administration for the next five years.
“The prison terms of several people of this list should expire soon or have expired. This makes the problem of disappearances in prisons more relevant than ever,” human rights activists emphasize. “Special attention to this group of disappeared from the international community can save their lives, as there is a high risk of conviction for new terms of faked-up charges. International pressure on Turkmenistan is more important than ever.”
The report also notes that the list contains precisely confirmed cases of enforced disappearances. “In conditions of severe suppression of civil liberties and lack of access to the country for foreign human rights organizations and international observers, the published list is inevitably incomplete. The total number of victims of enforced and involuntary disappearances in Turkmenistan, in our estimation, is measured in hundreds; some of them have been kept without any connection with their relatives since 2002,” the human rights organization summarizes.
