Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called on the authorities in Turkmenistan to release a photojournalist who has been secretly detained for weeks on charges it believes to be politically motivated.
Saparmamed Nepeskuliev, who works with the Turkmen language service of Radio Liberty and with the Netherlands-based human rights group Alternative Turkmenistan News (ATN), has been denied contact with his lawyer and family.
Nepeskuliev’s Radio Liberty photo reportage has covered such issues as water shortages; luxury villas for judges, security officials, and other civil servants; and delays in completing the construction of a hospital.
For ATN, he wrote about the chaotic state of health care in Balkanabad, in western Turkmenistan, where he lives.
Ruslan Myatiev, ATN’s director, told HRW that Nepeskuliev was last heard of on 7 July when he was on a photo assignment in the coastal city of Awaza.
On Tuesday (28 July), a family member visited a prison facility in Akdash, about 30 kms east of Awaza, where an official confirmed that Nepeskuliev was in custody. He said he would be tried for unlawfully “possessing pills with narcotic substances.” The official refused to allow the relative to see Nepeskuliev.
Rachel Denber, HRW’s deputy Europe and central Asia director, said: “The alarming arrest and incommunicado detention of Saparmamed Nepeskuliev makes us profoundly concerned for his safety and well-being.
“Turkmenistan has a long record of jailing journalists and government critics, bringing trumped-up charges, and mistreating detainees.”
Several years ago, Nepeskuliev was forcibly incarcerated in a psychiatric hospital for two weeks following his single-man picket during a visit to Balkanabad by President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov.
In the past four years, the Turkmen government has subjected four other Radio Liberty correspondents to such psychiatric treatment.
Turkmenistan is one of the most closed and repressive countries in the world, and does not allow media freedom. Denber said: “The Turkmen government tolerates no criticism and harshly punishes people who try to question government policies.
“The photographs taken by Nepeskuliev show some hard realities about life for ordinary people in Turkmenistan and about the relative luxury some government officials enjoy.”
Source: HRW