Sources of “Chronicles of Turkmenistan” report that some precautionary measures to prevent the spread of coronavirus are being undertaken in Turkmenistan’s penitentiary facilities.
Movement of inmates between buildings has been banned in the female colony in Dashoguz velayat, and an isolated area for patients diagnosed with infectious diseases has been established. Four medical doctors and eight nurses have been transferred from the municipal infectious diseases hospital to work in the quarantine zone.
The sewing shop has also stopped its operations.
24 hour visits have been reduced to one hour. Meetings with visitors are conducted through a protective glass shield and by telephone.
Inmates are allowed to receive medications from family members as the penitentiary facilities are experiencing an acute shortage of medications.
The authorities of the colony do not provide disposable medical masks to female inmates who have been instructed to sew face their own masks.
On 18 July, 2020 two inmates died in the penitentiary facility LBK/12 located in Lebap velayat. Relatives were informed that they had died of pneumonia but the bodies were been handed over to family members. The deceased were buried in a cemetery in the city of Seidi by soldiers of the Interior Ministry.
According to sources of “Chronicles of Turkmenistan”, high-ranking officers of the public prosecutor’s office and the Ministry of Justice made a joint decision, pursuant to which no convicts will be convoyed to colonies and prisons in other regions for the time being.
They will be kept in penitentiary facilities of the velayat where their trial took place before a verdict was passed.
Let us recall that in the 2019 progress report the Ombudsperson Yazdursun Gurbannazarova reported on the visits to three penitentiary facilities in Akhal velayat.
According to Gurbannazarova, medical conditions are in place for in-patient treatment of inmates.If needed, the patients are allowed to leave the colony to undergo a course of treatment.
No expired medications were identified.