Turkmen Authorities Tighten Screws on Migration

Tighter restrictions are to be imposed on the borders of Turkmenistan, one of the world’s worst violators of the basic right to travel freely.

President Gurbanguly Berdymuhammedov used a January 8 meeting of the State Security Council to order an expanded mandate for Turkmenistan’s migration service. This follows a 2009 law that granted the service its own personnel and made them responsible for passport checks, formerly the task of the border guards service. 

Berdymuhammedov also appointed a new head for the migration service, Ashyrgeldi Begliev, formerly deputy security minister, and dismissed his predecessor for “errors” in his work.

Freedom of movement is severely restricted in Turkmenistan. After the country’s first president, Saparmurat Niazov, died in late 2006, Berdymuhammedov began making it easier to travel around Turkmenistan and stopped requiring entry permits to border areas from transit passengers and people with relatives living there. However, the changes did not go further than that.

A businessman based in the southeastern city of Mary, said he spent three months trying to arrange an official invitation for his business partner in Germany.

"I submitted a lot of certificates and documents, both my own and those of the person I was invited, and then I waited. After that, I went to find out why my partner was not being allowed to enter the country," he said. "I paid a lot of money and in the end I was turned down with no explanation."

Turkmen human rights groups say the authorities continue to draw up blacklists of people barred from going abroad, amounting to between 12,000 and 17,000 citizens including journalists, the handful of civil activists, dissidents, and the relatives of political prisoners, opposition members and emigres. When such individuals try to travel abroad on business or for personal reasons, they are stopped at airport controls and prevented from continuing their journey.

"I am not allowed to travel abroad, as was the case previously," an activist based in the capital Ashgabat, who has been unable to leave the country for almost five years. "The same applies to entry, which has become even tougher. Many people with dual [Turkmen and Russian] nationality are not allowed back in once they go to Russia on personal business."

He cited the case of a man who spent a couple of months in St Petersburg and then made four failed attempts to re-enter Turkmenistan. "They always say he’s banned from entering the country, nothing more than that,” he added.

An Ashgabat-based journalist said he had been prevented from travelling several times despite obtaining a visa.

“Every time, the migration service officers at Ashgabat airport politely refer me to their head office, where officials cite some kind of instructions, which I guess come from the Ministry for National Security," he said. "So I’ve been in the same vicious circle for three years."

He is convinced that any changes to the way the migration service operates will be designed to make things even harder. 

Other commentators in the country are equally doubtful that the latest instructions from Berdymuhammedov are intended to allow greater freedom of movement.

"Like anyone from the Ministry of National Security, the new migration service chief Ashyrgeldi Begliev, will be so vigilant that anyone applying for a passport or permission to invite a foreigner will be viewed as unreliable and a potential spy,” an analyst in northern Turkmenistan said.

A Turkmen government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, rejected such allegations, saying the migration service was no worse than those in other countries. He said staff numbers were being increased only to shorten the time people had to spend waiting in line.

This article was produced as part of IWPR’s News Briefing Central Asia output, funded by the National Endowment for Democracy