AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL REPORT 2016/17

FORCED LABOUR
The government continued to use forced
labour in the cotton-picking industry, one of
the largest in the world. To harvest the cotton,
local authorities compel public sector
workers, including teachers, medical staff
and civil servants, to pick and to meet
individual government-set quotas or risk
losing their jobs. Children often help their
parents meeting the quotas. The ILO
Committee of Experts on the Application of
Conventions and Recommendations urged
Turkmenistan to end practices that give rise
to forced labour in the cotton industry.
LEGAL, CONSTITUTIONAL OR
INSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENTS
A law to establish a Human Rights
Commissioner (Ombudsman) was still under
development.
A new Constitution was adopted on 16
September. It extended the presidential
tenure to seven years and removed a
previous presidential age limit.
ENFORCED DISAPPEARANCES
The whereabouts of prisoners who were
subjected to enforced disappearance after an
alleged assassination attempt on then
President Saparmurat Niyazov in 2002
remained unknown.
FREEDOM OF RELIGION AND BELIEF
In the town of Dashoguz, bearded men under
50 years were detained and questioned
about their religious beliefs and practices,
and some were forcibly shaved, according to
the Alternative Turkmenistan News service.
The new Law on Freedom of Conscience
and Religious Organizations was signed into
law in March. It retained an earlier ban on
exercising freedom of religion and belief with
others without state permission. Under the
new law, religious groups need to have 50
founding members to register, rather than
five, as stipulated in the previous law.
Conscientious objectors faced criminal
prosecution. Forum 18, a human rights
organization promoting religious freedom,
reported that a young Jehovah’s Witness was
sentenced to corrective labour for refusing to
perform his military service.
TORTURE AND OTHER ILL-TREATMENT
Former prisoners told Alternative
Turkmenistan News about poor prison
conditions and treatment in detention
amounting to torture and other ill-treatment.
According to these accounts, prison officers
beat prisoners and forced them to stand
outside for long periods in high temperatures.
Prison officers also practised extortion.
Prisons were overcrowded and prisoners not
provided with adequate food. Some prisoners
had to sleep on the floor or in the prison yard.
Tuberculosis rates were high and infected
prisoners did not always receive appropriate
treatment.
Reports continued to be received on the
use of torture or ill-treatment by law
enforcement officers to force detainees to
“confess” and incriminate others. Activist
Mansur Mingelov remained in prison. He was
convicted in 2012 after an unfair trial for drug
offences after publicizing information on
torture and other ill-treatment of Baloch
ethnic community members in Mary
province.
INTERNATIONAL SCRUTINY
Turkmenistan remained closed to
international scrutiny and rejected or failed to
respond to requests from the UN Special
Rapporteurs to visit the country.
FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT
Citizens have not needed “exit visas” to leave
the country since 2006. But arbitrary
restrictions on the right to travel abroad
remained in practice: they targeted, among
others, relatives of people accused of
involvement in the alleged attempt to
assassinate President Niyazov in 2002,
relatives of members of the opposition
resident abroad, as well as civil society
activists, students, journalists and former
migrant workers.
372 Amnesty International Report 2016/17