Turkmenistan: President pardoned over 1,000 prisoners

On May 7, the President Berdymukhamedov signed a decree pardoning 1,035 convicts in honor of the Night of Omnipotence (Gadir gidzhesi), of whom 982 are citizens of Turkmenistan and 53 are foreigners.

There is not a single political prisoner among those pardoned. The country’s authorities deliberately don’t include political prisoners in the lists of pardoned. However, this time, 16 Jehovah’s Witnesses were pardoned. They were convicted of evasion of military service on religious grounds. This message appeared on the website of the World Organization of this religious organization.

Since 2010, the authorities of Turkmenistan have convicted and sentenced 45 Jehovah’s Witnesses to various prison terms. Also on May 9, the Iranian News Agency reported that Turkmenistan sent three pardoned Iranian citizens to the Iranian side; all three were convicted of drug trafficking. The Iranians were deported from the territory of Turkmenistan to their homeland through the border checkpoint of Lotfabad.

As in previous years, Turkmenistan didn’t publish the list of those pardoned this time either.

According to international organizations, Turkmenistan leads in the number of prisoners in Central Asia and ranks third in the world in terms of the number of prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants/wp