As the world marks Human Rights Day on December 10, celebrating the adoption in 1948 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and reaffirming the importance of rights worldwide, activists in Turkmenistan, one of the world’s most repressive countries, continue to pay a devastating price for defending those rights.
Murat Dushemov, Mansur Mingelov, and Myalikberdy Allamuradov, activists who exposed abuses and peacefully criticized Turkmen government policies, remain imprisoned after closed, unfair trials. Their continued detention reflects a broader pattern of retaliation against civic activism and perceived dissent in the country. On December 1, several rights groups renewed calls for their release and for the government to fulfill its human rights obligations.
In January, officials barred Nurgeldy Khalykov, a Turkmen.news stringer who completed a four-year prison sentence in 2024 on fabricated fraud charges, from traveling abroad. Pygambergeldy Allaberdyev, a lawyer pardoned in 2022 after a bogus conviction, has also been barred from international travel for five years. Authorities prevented independent journalist Soltan Achilova from traveling to receive a human rights award in 2023 by damaging her passport, and again in 2024 by forcibly hospitalizing her on false pretenses.
Turkmenistan also severely retaliates against activists abroad. Rovshen Klychev, Farhad Meymankuliev, and Saddam Gulamov, are among several activists who were detained after they were forcibly returned to Turkmenistan and sentenced to lengthy prison terms following closed trials. The three men had publicly criticized government policies while living abroad.
In July, two Turkmen dissident bloggers, Alisher Sakhatov and Abdulla Orusov, who had been detained in Türkiye and faced deportation, vanished. Their whereabouts remain unknown, raising grave fears that they may have been forcibly returned to Turkmenistan to face the risk of torture, arbitrary detention, and enforced disappearance.
Turkmen authorities should release all those unjustly imprisoned and end reprisals against critics at home and abroad. Turkmenistan’s international partners have a critical role to play in pressing the government to ensure these activists’ freedom.
Another Human Rights Day should not pass without acknowledging the many Turkmen activists who, at great personal cost, have sacrificed in the fight for human dignity for all.
