Turkmenistan
A new development: Teswirler.com, a popular Turkmen youth chat site, has been inaccessible as of around 12:00 last night. If you type in the domain name, the browser announces, “The site has been closed temporarily.” I haven’t been able to get through to the site’s administrators.
This update comes somewhat late, but I think it’s important to announce anyway in case some of neweurasia‘s readers haven’t heard: my country’s authorities are relaxing the strict conditions placed upon its students abroad by accepting foreign diplomas. I’ve gotten some reactions from some of my countrymen…
The Turkmen Ministry of Interior. Photograph by Panoramio user Goetz Burggraf (CC-usage).
Editor’s note: Another wave of inquisition and intimidation is under way in Turkmenistan, and a key feature of it are strange questionnaires and interviews. neweurasia’s Annasoltan gets her hands on some of the questions being asked, as well as some of the horrifying methods the authorities are using in order to extract false confessions from innocent people, including false allegations and electrocution.
Three posts ago I wrote about questionnaires that Turkmen authorities are requiring students studying both in and out of the country to complete as part of an apparent vigilance campaign against any potential uprising. Various individuals who I cannot identify due to security concerns have come forward to provide me, directly or indirectly, more information about these questionnaires. The picture that emerges resembles nothing short of an inquisition.
The Turkmen-Turkish high school of Bayramaly. Photograph from Wikimapia. Click on it to see more.
Editor’s note: The Turkmen authorities have been slowly but systematically shutting down or otherwise changing the status of the Turkish system of secondary schools in the country, reports neweurasia’s Annasoltan. She talks with a representative of the schools and students who know them well to discern the government’s motivations.
It began with students from Turkmen-Turkish secondary schools in Turkmenistan complaining in chat forums that their schools were no longer accepting new students. Then this past summer, what initially appeared to be nothing but nasty gossip about the closing down of several Turkmen-Turkish schools throughout the country later proved to be unfortunately true. For the remaining Turkmen-Turkish schools, boarding options were altogether eliminated. That means Turkmen pupils were (and remain) no longer allowed to stay overnight at these schools. Now a source close to the Turkish government has now confirmed to me that the schools are on their way to closing down entirely.
Ms Otunbayeva has been very polite lately. She has offered an apology to Latvia for nationalizing private companies in Kyrgyzstan, which were partially or wholly owned by Latvian shareholders among other foreign investors. She has then issued an apology to those at home. To those at home who faced either death or injury or emigration, to be specific. She has traveled to the devastated city of Osh in southern Kyrgyzstan where she apologized on behalf of the then interim government for “being unable to prevent and stop the massacre.” Read the full story »
There is enormous mystery square in Google photo of Garabogazköl lagoon. This lagoon has many increases and decreases in level, sometimes even totally dry. Very strange that shadow is on northeast corner. New secret project of Berdimuhammedow? ;-]
Abdulaziz, whom I interviewed earlier this month, has posted new videos of the 2008 shootout in Ashgabat and the body of Ajdar on his YouTube account.
The most important video is the one shown here, at the top of this post. According to Abdulaziz, this has been newly received and was filmed at the water plant during the shootout privately by a member of the state security service.
Photograph by Flickr user Cindy47452 (CC-usage).
Editor’s note: neweurasia’s Schwartz summarizes our network’s coverage of the reactions from the governments of Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan to the ongoing upheavals in the Middle East. What he concludes is that their leaders are actively, if quietly, scanning the horizon for signs of trouble that, sooner or later, is bound to come. “It seems [they] are very effectively tightening their grasps – and that’s the problem,” he writes. This is a slightly different version of his original editorial for neweurasia’s partner site, Transitions Online.
Three blind mice. Three blind mice.
See how they run. See how they run.
They all ran after the farmer’s wife,
Who cut off their tails with a carving knife,
Did you ever see such a sight in your life,
As three blind mice?– Old English nursery rhyme
As political upheaval continues to rumble across the Middle East, North Africa, and even into the Caucasus, the governments of Central Asia are taking active, if subtle, steps to extinguish the fire of revolt before it can be lit. The problem is they may actually be giving it fuel.
Brief remark: on 14 March Berdimuhamedov paid “surprise” visit to Turkmen shepherd’s home in the desert. Visit shown on state television (click link to see screen captures from Azatlyk Radiosy). Azatlyk story focuses on assumption that visit was not impromptu. Example: the carpets are not typical of shepherd, who could not afford them. But I think focus can be put on something else.
In my opinion, the state media want to spread idea that the President is wanting to see situation on the ground with his own eyes. Example: Berdimuhammedow visited school in small town of Üçajy in Mary province on 26 January. Used to be that state television would claim Niyazov was thinking day and night for the good of his people. He was often shown meeting farmers and workers. But this is pattern for many dictatorships.
More disturbing to see similar pattern not just in those, but also democracies. How many times we hear Merkel or Obama say they worry for normal Germans and Americans or see them visit factories? Difference is the people can change their leaders in democracies, but sad to see that the leaders still always have same behaviors anyway.
Image by Flickr user Khalid Albaih (CC-usage).
Editor’s note: As revolutionary tremors continue to be felt throughout the Middle East and possibly the Caucasus, Turkmenistan is rolling out its usual assortment of repressive tactics, but with new robustness and an extra anti-youth edge, reports neweurasia’s Annasoltan with quotes from the Turkmenet. “[These remarks] should send chills up the backs of the authorities,” she writes. “They can’t expect to keep giving and taking from the rising generation without creating the very revolution they’re trying to avoid.”
Whenever a revolution happens in the Muslim world, Turkmenistan’s youth usually suffer. That’s because our nation’s authorities have real ambivalence about youngsters. So, as they did during Kyrgyzstan’s revolution, as North Africa, the Middle East, and now the Caucasus rumble, our government is nervous about a ripple effect here, and the authorities have stepped up their efforts of monitoring young Turkmens studying abroad and have imposed new restrictions on schools and universities back home.
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