Fwd: Turkmenistan: Security Agents Expel Rights Worker
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From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>
Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1999 21:40:10 +0200 (EET)
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Subject: Fwd: Turkmenistan: Security Agents Expel Rights Worker
From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>
Original sender: Eldar Zeynalov <[email protected]>
Fwd: Turkmenistan: Security Agents Expel Rights Worker
-----Original Message-----
Date: Mon, 08 Feb 1999 12:24:16 -0800
From: Sasha Petrov <[email protected]>
Organization: Human Rights Watch
For Immediate Release
For further information, contact:
Rachel Denber, NYC, 1-212-216-1266
Elizabeth Andersen, NYC, 1-212-216-1265
Lotte Leicht, Brussels, 32-2-732-2009
Jean-Paul Marthoz, Brussels, 32-2-736-7838
Turkmen Security Agents Expel Rights Worker
(February 5, 1999) State security agents in Turkmenistan detained and
expelled a staff member of the U.S.-based monitoring group Human
Rights Watch earlier this week. At 11:00 p.m. on February 2, three
agents from the Committee for National Security (KNB) detained
Alexander Petrov of Human Rights Watch in his hotel room in Ashgabat.
They accused him of breaking the law and held him incommunicado,
refusing to allow him to notify his colleagues or consulate that he
was being forced out of the country. The security officers then took
Mr. Petrov directly to the Ashgabat airport, where he was forced to
wait until morning for the next available flight to Moscow.
Mr. Petrov was expelled during an official visit and fact-finding trip
by Human Rights Watch. The high-level delegation also included Human
Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth, who had left
Turkmenistan less than twenty-four hours before Mr. Petrov was
deported.
Turkmenistan has benefited from millions of dollars of U.S. government
credits to U.S. companies involved in energy transportation projects
in the country. "Turkmenistan has an open-door policy when it comes to
receiving billions of dollars in U.S. investment, but slams the door
shut on any effort to bring to light its shameful human rights
record," said Roth, adding, "These kinds of brutish tactics recall the
worst of the Soviet era." Human Rights Watch informed the government
of Turkmenistan that unless it guarantees Mr. Petrov reentry into the
country and issues a formal apology, the organization will withdraw
its research mission from Turkmenistan.
The head of the Committee for National Security, Major General
Mukhammed Nazarov, told Human Rights Watch that Mr. Petrov had "broken
the law" when he and others from the organization gave a former
political prisoner and a Radio Liberty correspondent copies of a
report on human rights in Turkmenistan written by two Russian
activists. Gen. Nazarov described the materials as "a threat to the
stability of Turkmenistan."
Turkmenistan has a closed society and one of the most repressive
governments in the world. President Saparmurad Niyazov's
zero-tolerance policy on freedom of expression is notorious. There is
no political opposition, no freedom of assembly and no opportunity for
public debate in the country. Just days before Mr. Petrov's
deportation, security agents reportedly quashed what would have been
the first organization of independent journalists in the country and
detained five organizers of the meeting.
February 3, 1999
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