Turkmenistan Tries to Bar Rights Activists From OSCE Event

At a recent event hosted in Warsaw by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, OSCE, Turkmen officials tried to prevent human rights activists gaining entry.

The review conference on the “human dimension” of the OSCE’s work, held from September 30 to October 8, was supposed to be a venue for dialogue between state and non-government actors on issues like rule of law and political and civil rights. NGOs were able to submit “alternative reports” giving a different perspective from that of their government.

However, Turkmen activists from the diaspora were not allowed to register for the event.

"I prepared a general overview of the current human rights situation, but unfortunately, I didn’t get an opportunity to deliver the report," Farid Tukhbatullin, head of the Vienna-based Turkmen Human Rights Initiative, said.

Tukhbatullin said he would circulate the alternative report via international human rights groups.

Nurmuhammed Hanamov, leader of the exiled Republican Party, and also resident in Austria, was told he was barred because the Turkmen government had raised objections. The same thing happened to Annadurdy Khajiev of the Bulgaria-based Turkmen Helsinki Foundation, although he eventually managed to get in and make a speech on the severe restrictions placed on journalists in the Central Asian state.

The Turkmen government had in any case boycotted the human dimension review conference, as it has done for most of the past two decades, attending only once, in 2005. Turkmen human rights defenders have, by contrast, been able to attend and speak at previous events. They say this provides them with one of the few forums where they can put their views over to the Turkmen government, albeit independently.

"We have no other dialogue with the authorities, and we have to use any method we can," Tukhbatullin said. "Statements made by the European Parliament, the European Union, the OSCE and the delegates [to events like the one in Warsaw] may reach the [Turkmen] authorities."

The 2010 review conference is taking place over three months in Warsaw, Poland and finally Astana, the capital of current OSCE chair Kazakstan, where it is scheduled to take place on on November 25-28.

At the Vienna event, on October 18-22, Hanamov and Tukhbatullin were again denied registration and entry by event organisers. However, after delegates from the European Union, United States and Canada raised objections with OSCE officials, the two were allowed to attend the following day.

In response, a Turkmen delegation which was attending this session walked out of the event, led by Ambassador Esen Aydogdiev.

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