Repression in Turkmenistan
Turkmenistan: The Harrowing Experience Of A Detained Journalist
Turkmenistan: Political Dissident Released From Psychiatric Hospital
Gurbandurdy Durdykuliev (file photo)
(Amnesty International)
Turkmen dissident Gurbandurdy Durdykuliev arrived at his home this morning after more than two years in a psychiatric hospital. He was institutionalized after writing to Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov and requesting to hold a demonstration against government policies.
PRAGUE, April 12, 2006 -- Durdykuliev sent the letter to President Niyazov in early January 2004. He wanted permission to hold a two-day political demonstration on the main square of the western Turkmen city of
Balkanabad. And he wanted the demonstration to take place on February 18 and 19 -- coinciding with celebrations marking Niyazov's birthday.
They kept me detained with lunatics and criminals. ... I was kept with them so I would lose my mind. They kept me there for two years and two months."
In his letter, Durdykuliev wrote that he wanted the demonstration to express "disagreement with the policies of the president and other senior government officials" -- and to call on them to correct the situation. About a month later, medical personnel and security officials arrived at Durdykuliev's home to take him to a psychiatric hospital at Garashsyzlyk in eastern Turkmenistan.
On April 11, Durdykuliev was freed from the hospital. He arrived back at his home early this morning.
Durdykuliev told RFE/RL's Turkmen Service that he has been "worn out" by his ordeal in the hospital. But he said he already feels better because he is no longer a patient there:
"They [put me in the hospital] with the aim of driving me crazy," Durdykuliev said. "They kept me detained with lunatics and criminals. Among them were people who had cut off their wives' breasts, or killed their wives or children. I was kept with them so I would lose my mind. They kept me there for two years and two months. The [health] commission came and confirmed that I was not [mentally] ill."
Durdykuliev said health commission officials did not return after that sole visit. He said he was told that there was no reason for the commission to see him because he was not mentally or physically ill.
Durdykuliev also said officials told him during the health commission's visit that he was a political prisoner. He said he posted letters from the hospital to both the provincial health center and the local prosecutor to inform them about his case. But he received no response. He said he also wrote to an international court about bringing legal action for being falsely committed to the hospital. But again, he said he received no response.
Then, Durdykuliev said, life became more difficult for him. "Recently, they stopped giving permission for my wife and daughter to come visit me," he explained. "They told my wife -- since her name was Annagul Anayeva -- that she was not a relative. After March 22, my daughter came here because her name is
Durdykulieva. But [the hospital authorities] refused to pass on to me whatever she brought. Previously, my wife and daughter brought me things to eat. But they stopped that. I haven't eaten hot food since March 22."
Durdykuliev said his fortunes changed on the afternoon of April 11 when hospital personnel came to him. But he wasn't immediately aware of his imminent release.
"They told me to be quiet. Do not gossip. Remain silent," Durdykuliev said. "And then they said, 'Maybe things will be worse [for you].' I said: 'We will see. Let's go.' After two years and two months [in the psychiatric hospital], they had done everything to me. Worse things they could no longer do. So I told them, 'We will see.'"
Durdykuliev said he only realized he was being set free when he was told to gather together his personal belongings.
"They said, 'Get ready.' But they didn't say where I was going," he said. "I thought my letters got to the international court and they would take me to The Hague. It was only when we got to Charjou that they said, 'We are going to take you home.' They didn't say anything else. There was no one from the [health] commission there. There were seven to 10 people there -- the chief doctor, his assistant and some nurses. They took me out. And in
Charjou, they wanted to put me on a plane. But then they said: 'You have no passport and you need it. So you cannot fly.' And then they put me in a car."
The people accompanying Durdykuliev were under orders not to stop for food, drink, or to use a toilet. He arrived home at 3 a.m.
Durdykuliev said he plans to bring a law suit against the Turkmen government in international court. He said he wants $5 million as compensation for his physical suffering and financial loses.
Durdykuliev also is thanking those that he credits for helping obtain his release -- particularly 54 members of the U.S. Congress who sent a letter to President Niyazov earlier this month calling for his release.
"I want, through your radio, to say thank you very much to international organizations and to the U.S. Congress," Durdykuliev said. "And also to the many people who sent telegrams, postcards, and letters to me -- 40 or 50 of them. [Hospital officials] showed them to me once. But they are still kept by the head of the psychiatric hospital. I want to thank them."
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and other rights groups are welcoming Durdykuliev's release. But Durdykuliev said he is under surveillance. He also says he does not have any means of earning a living for himself or his family.
Durdykuliev's release comes one month after pressure from international organizations and Western governments helped obtain the release of two
RFE/RL correspondents who were held for 10 days without charge by police in Turkmenistan.
(Contributors to this report include RFE/RL correspondent Bruce Pannier, and RFE/RL Turkmen Service correspondents Rozynazar Khudaiberdiev and Guvanch
Geraev.)
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Turkmenistan: The Harrowing Experience Of A Detained Journalist
By Bruce Pannier
Turkmen President Niyazov (file photo)
(RFE/RL)
Two RFE/RL correspondents working in Turkmenistan disappeared earlier this month. It later emerged that Turkmen authorities detained them. Their detention sparked letters of concern from many international human-rights organizations and eventually the two were released after 10 days in custody. No direct contact with them was possible until today, when
RFE/RL's Turkmen Service spoke with Meret Khommadov, one of the detained journalists.
PRAGUE, March 22, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- Khommadov spoke first about his physical condition, but he indicated that he was under the surveillance of security officials at his home in Turkmenistan.
"Now I feel well," he says. "Very well. But in the village during all these days the [National Security Ministry or
MNB] officers or some other security force employees are keeping watch over us."
Khommadov and his colleague, RFE/RL correspondent Jumadurdy Ovezov, were picked up by police on March 7. Khommadov explained what happened to them after they were taken from their homes.
"On March 7 at 8 a.m. we were taken, probably by a police officer, to the police station," he says. "We were waiting for two hours at the police station. Then we were taken to the Hakimlik (the Mary provincial governor's office). There were a lot of [village elders] there who talked to us. They were shouting, calling us traitors. They were very aggressive toward us. They promised to evict us from the village and not let us live there. Then [the village elders] made accusations against us, using harsh language and sentenced us to 15 days of community service. [My colleague] did not say anything. However, he was also arrested. They put pressure on me, saying that I trained Juma to work for
[RFE/RL]. At the meeting, the officers of the security forces continued to put pressure on me -- interrupting my comments and trying to stop me from speaking. They took us to that meeting by force."
The two were put in jail. Khommadov described the conditions inside his cell.
"We were kept in the [southern] town of Mary....," he continues. "There are no conveniences there, only a metal bed without any mattress or sheets. There are cockroaches, lice. You have to stay together with people suffering from tuberculosis and drug abusers. There was no food except one piece of bread and at noon some kind of cereal we ate without any spoon."
'We Signed Some Papers'
Those questioning Khommadov and Ovezov -- who are both 54 years old -- threatened to charge them with being traitors and fomenting interreligious hatred. Eventually the two correspondents had to sign confessions to obtain their release.
"When they questioned us both in the police station, and the governor's office, they recorded the whole conversation on video," he says. "They forced us to sign a paper where we had to confess and ask for an early release. That is how I got released."
'Working With Traitors'
But signing the papers was not all they had to do.
"We signed some papers that said one thing -- but orally they warned us not to cooperate with
[RFE/RL]," he says. "They said the radio was working with bad people who are traitors and they named all the people who cooperated with Radio Liberty, like [former Foreign Minister Boris
Shikhmuradov, who was convicted in 2003 of plotting to kill Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov and has since been jailed, and] drug addicts and people who were traitors during World War II. They said it was not good to [work for
RFE/RL]."
Khommadov and Ovezov were released on March 17 and taken back to their home village, but not before receiving a warning.
"They told us not to speak out against government policies, saying if we did not follow what they said they would 'smash us' and they wouldn't stop with this and continue dealing with our family members and children in the same way," he says.
"Before that, on February 18, the authorities came to our home and questioned us about all our family members, even about those who died some years ago. I kept silent about that. They summoned me to the police station but I didn't come. And then on February 22 they cut my phone line and continued doing so regularly. When
[RFE/RL] tried to call me they cut the line as soon as you said 'hello.'"
Still No Contact
Khommadov said the situation with Ovezov, who suffers from kidney problems, is not good.
"Juma complains about pain in his kidneys," he says. "We are under constant surveillance. People are around my house and Juma's house, watching. He cannot leave. At night his son came to me and said his father was ill and asked me to come. Then Juma told me he was sick and he didn't know what to do. He said, 'if I go to the doctor [I'm afraid] he might give me the wrong injection and kill me.'"
Khommadov said the uncomfortable conditions in the cell contributed to Ovezov's current condition.
RFE/RL has thus far been unable to contact Ovezov.
(RFE/RL's Turkmen Service contributed to this report.)
Copyright (c) 2005. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. www.rferl.org