London-based Amnesty International says it has received "reliable information" that Ibadullah's family had not been permitted to see him since his arrest.
The organization has called on the Turkmen government to immediately release all prisoners of conscience and to appropriately address all other cases, including Ibadullah's.
RFE/RL
Police said he was arrested on February 19 in the Black Sea port city of Varna following notification by Interpol.
Khajiev's supporters said his arrest was politically motivated and demanded his immediate release.
The Watan party said in a statement that Khajiev's family was constantly persecuted in Turkmenistan. Khajiev's sister, RFE/RL reporter Ogulsapar Muradova, died in prison in Turkmenistan in 2006 after a trial described by international human rights groups as unfair.
Watan accused Bulgarian authorities of "deliberately cooperating with one of the most repressive dictatorships in the world." It asked the European Union to pressure new EU member Bulgaria to stop what it called an "illegality."
The main question is why Khajiev, who already stayed in Bulgaria for a longe time, has been arrested by the country's authorities. ETG sources state that the Turkmen President Berdymukhamedov personally sent a request to the Bulgarian Government for arresting and detaining him to Turkmenistan.
Karryev said Berdymukhammedov won the presidency with 89.23 percent of the vote.
The result was universally anticipated.
Inauguration Immediately Follows
The announcement was immediately followed by the inauguration ceremony at a session of the Halk Maslahaty (People's Council), the country's highest legislative body.
As nearly 2,500 members of the assembly and the heads of state or government from Russia, Afghanistan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkey, and Ukraine looked on, President-elect Berdymukhammedov stepped up to take the oath of office -- and to praise an election that few would argue was fair or remotely democratic.
"The Turkmen people and the whole world have seen that the competition among the candidates for presidency has been held open and confidently," said Berdymukhammedov.
The new Turkmen president begins his term under the immense shadow of former President Saparmurat Niyazov -- who was better known as "Turkmenbashi," or the head of all Turkmen.
Berdymukhammedov might not aspire to wield the power or generate the fear of Niyazov, but he appears to have inspired hope among Turkmen voters that he can rule more reasonably.
Berdymukhammedov has promised to continue along the path Niyazov set for the country. He also reassured countries with business interests in energy-rich Turkmenistan that previous contracts and deals will be honored.
Softening of Regime's Grip Possible
He also pledged during his campaign to restore the education system to what it was before Niyazov cut the term of mandatory study, reduced university enrollment, and made it all but impossible for Turkmen citizens to study abroad.
Berdymukhammedov also promised to restore the health-care system that was gutted by Niyazov, and he said he would reexamine pensions one year after his predecessor cut the number of eligible pensioners by some 100,000 people. Berdymukhammedov also promised the previously unthinkable in one of the world's most closed societies: easing access to the Internet.
Analysts caution that Berdymukhammedov cannot move too quickly -- or too far -- with any reforms. But they suggest that the new Turkmen leader could gain popularity simply by restoring to the public some of the basic services that Niyazov took away.
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By Richard Howitt, Albert Jan Maat and Bart Staes
Published: February 9 2007 02:00 | Last updated: February 9 2007 02:00
From Albert Jan Maat, Richard Howitt and Bart Staes, MEPs.
Sir, We are writing to call for European and international support for the postponement of the presidential elections in Turkmenistan due on February 11 in the face of incontrovertible evidence of massive abuse of the electoral process. The death of dictator Saparmurat Niyazov provides a historic opportunity to end years of repression for the Turkmen people - an opportunity that will be missed if unfair and undemocratic elections simply allow a new authoritarian regime to be entrenched.
It is now clear that all six candidates come from the former Communist party and have had to pledge public allegiance to Niyazov's legacy. Both the designated successor and the sole independent presidential hopeful are reported to be under arrest to eliminate them as contenders. Exiled political opposition has been barred from re-entering the country. Security forces are going house to house to coerce voters to support acting president Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov. Despite the fact that Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the German foreign minister, told the European parliament that the instability of the region remains an important threat to Europe, the European Union has remained silent about these abuses.
In addition to calling for postponement of the elections, the EU should call for independent judicial review for the political prisoners, freedom to campaign for alternative political parties, full freedom of expression, including for foreign journalists to report freely on these elections.
As MEPs with a special interest in central Asia, and safekeepers of human rights, political freedoms and democratic values, we appeal to all national parliaments in the EU to call on their governments to press these demands on the Turkmen regime.
Albert Jan Maat, Vice-Chairman, European Delegation to Central Asia, and Member, EPP/ED Group
Richard Howitt, Vice-Chairman, Human Rights Committee, and Member, PES Group
Bart Staes, Member, European Delegation to Central Asia, and Member, Greens/EFA Group
European Parliament
The Financial Times Limited 2007
In an interview with RFE/RL's Turkmen Service, Albert Jan Maat, who is also a European Parliament deputy, argued that the presidential poll might not be a reason for optimism.
"These elections, only with candidates from the former government -- you can't call them real elections, and that is not a [good] start for a more open society," he said.
Maat said he favored a delay for the vote so that the opposition can file candidates and the international community can send observers. There are six candidates in the election, but all are former government officials.
The election is widely expected to fall short of Western democratic standards.
By Isabel Gorst
Published: February 7 2007 02:00 | Last updated: February 7 2007 02:00
In a totalitarian state best known for the bizarre personality cult of Saparmurat Niyazov, Turkmenistan's former leader, the reforms proposed last month by Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, the acting president, came out of the blue.
Observers of the central Asian republic are used to a different flavour of Turkmen politics after 21 years under the rule of a totalitarian president who squandered gas revenues on gilded monuments to himself and built ice palaces in the desert.
The acting president has recommended a democratic transfer of power and professed openness to political dialogue and, possibly, a multi-party system. But few expect real change after polls on Sunday.
Mr Berdymukhamedov will face no more than a mock challenge from five candidates, including four regional governors and a deputy minister of oil. Outsiders have been eliminated from the race and opponents ar-rested. Former officials who fled persecution have formed an opposition coalition in exile but judge it too dangerous to return to contest the election.
The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe has said that, as the first presidential election to take place in Turkmenistan with more than one candidate, the forthcoming poll "merits support". But it warned that there was "no guarantee of competitive elections" and said it had not had time to organise a mission to decide on the fairness of the ballot.
Little is known of Mr Berdy-mukhamedov, a dentist by training who retained posts as health minister and deputy prime minister for several years in spite of Niyazov's frequent purges.
Niyazov did not name a successor publicly and opposition members say the ailing dictator fixed on Mr Berdymukhamedov as his heir after failing to persuade his son to accept the role of future leader last year.
Ru-mours that Mr Berdy-muk-hamedov, 47, is Niyazov's undeclared son may win him support in Turkmenistan, a country where clan bonds are respected. Jonathan Stern, the head of gas research at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, said Mr Berdymukha-medov's statements so far offered some room for optimism. "Mr Berdymukha-medov's tone is encouragingly sensible. But these are the earliest possible days. It is hard to know if Mr Berdymuk-hamedov will be a permanent fixture or a transitional leader."
He has promised that travel restrictions will be eased and that the internet will be widely available by 2015 - a bold advance for a republic where even government ministries are forbidden to accept foreign faxes.
He has also promised to prioritise improvements to healthcare, pensions and education, all of which were curtailed during the latter years of Niyazov's rule.
As health minister, Mr Berdymukhamedov was res-ponsible for enforcing Niyazov's orders to close regional hospitals and res-trict medicine imports, is-sued on the grounds that Turkmens were too robust to sicken.
However vague these hopes of political and economic reform, there are still fears that a softening of the regime could unleash unrest.
The authorities are reported to have killed 23 inmates of the Ovaden Dele prison during a riot that erupted after news broke of Niyazov's death. Ovaden Dele houses political prisoners, including thousands jailed after an attempted assassination of Niyazov in 2002.
Wider social upheaval would be more difficult to contain. A crisis is looming in the agriculture sector amid rumours that the government sold off seed after a poor harvest last autumn, an action that would preclude spring sowing.
Martha Olcott, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said: "There is real danger of social unrest in coming months if these rumours prove true."
Election day is expected to pass smoothly but Turkmenistan's leadership is not taking any chances. General Akmurad Redjepov, the head of the presidential guard, is understood to be overseeing a security alert
The Financial Times Limited 2007
Five Rivals Defer To Acting President, The Presumed Winner
By Peter Finn?Washington Post Foreign Service?Sunday, February 4, 2007; A14
MOSCOW -- Six presidential candidates are barnstorming the country and holding public meetings to talk about improving education, reforming health care, ensuring adequate pensions and boosting agriculture.
It could be Iowa -- if it weren't Turkmenistan.
Acting President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, 49, will almost certainly win when the Central Asian country's citizens go to the polls Feb. 11. His opponents, a deputy minister and four regional officials, are willing foils, according to analysts and exiled politicians.
Murad Karyev, the supposedly neutral chairman of the Central Election Commission, has already said Berdymukhammedov is the best man for the job.
But the modicum of debate in a country that during its 15-plus years of independence lived under the megalomaniacal shadow of president-for-life Saparmurad Niyazov amounts to a slight thaw. For the first time, the country will hold a presidential election in which more than one candidate is running.
Each of the six candidates continues to pledge loyalty to the legacy of Niyazov. But their stump speeches contain some implicit criticism of the late president by acknowledging the need to reverse the erosion of social programs, in particular.
"We know who the winner is already," said Murad Esenov, director of the Institute for Central Asian and Caucasian Studies in Sweden. "However, there are other candidates, and the fact that they have the possibility to speak up is significant and good. I believe there will be certain changes, because everyone realizes they cannot live as they lived before."
The exiled opposition has been prevented from returning to take part in the election. A coalition of exile organizations chose Khudaiberdy Orazov, a former vice premier and head of the Central Bank, to run as their candidate, but he is sitting out the campaign abroad.
"They are trying to create an image of real elections, but of course these are not elections. It's some sort of clownery," said Orazov, who lives in Sweden. "I believe we are entering the second stage of dictatorship."
Agents from Turkmenistan's internal security service, the MNB, are shadowing five of the candidates to ensure they don't stray from their scripts and say things contrary to policies laid out by the leading candidate, according to the Eurasian Transition Group, a nongovernmental organization in Germany that is one of the few with a presence in Turkmenistan.
"The other five candidates have to attend security council meetings, where they receive their orders," said Michael Laubsch, executive director of the German group. "Everything is concentrated on Berdymukhammedov, and the MNB have total control over the other candidates."
For the outside world, the direction Turkmenistan takes will carry profound implications for energy security. The former Soviet republic is becoming the focus of competition among Russia, China and the West as they vie for its natural gas resources.
Most of Turkmenistan's gas is now exported through Russian pipelines. The supply could become vital to the ability of Gazprom, the Russian energy giant, to meet rising demand over the next decade. But Western governments would like to see construction of new export routes that bypass Russia and diversify the supply chain, something Niyazov had resisted.
China has already secured a deal to build a new pipeline that will deliver billions of cubic yards of natural gas annually over 30 years, beginning in 2009.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has embraced Berdymukhammedov. At a news conference Thursday, Putin mused favorably on the idea of an OPEC-like organization for natural gas, although he stressed, "We are not going to set up a cartel."
The United States and the European Union have stepped up contacts with Turkmenistan's new leadership. The opposition-in-exile has expressed frustration at what it sees as muted statements from those countries about the need for real democratic change.
Under Niyazov, who was 66 when he died of heart disease in December, Turkmenistan was one of the world's most isolated countries, subject to the bizarre whims of a leader who squandered vast amounts of revenue from natural gas resources on monuments to himself.
The country's education system, which forced students to study Niyazov's writings, was gutted. The number of years students spent in school was cut, and foreign degrees were not recognized. Pensions for 100,000 elderly citizens were summarily denied. Ballet and opera were banned as alien. Dissidents were jailed or forced into exile.
Exiled human rights activists have taken comfort from the release this week of an environmentalist who was given a three-year suspended sentence, rather than the usual prison term, after being convicted on a weapons possession charge that was widely seen as trumped-up. But that was offset by the ruthless suppression last month of a prison riot at a facility outside Ashkhabad, the capital. Twenty-three people were killed, according to human rights activists.
Berdymukhammedov, a dentist by profession and a former minister of health, has said that he will relax controls on Internet access, among the most stringent in the world, and that Turkmenistan may eventually move toward a multiparty system.
"I would like to be the president of a democratic country where people enjoy freedom and every condition to work and to rest, and where justice, peace and friendship dominate," Berdymukhammedov said, to sustained applause, at a televised meeting last month.
Whether such rhetoric is a short-term ploy to consolidate power by a governing class still unsure of its popular standing is unclear. But emerging regional and tribal concerns, suppressed under Niyazov, could also accelerate the need for broader power-sharing.
In a secretly conducted poll of 1,145 respondents across Turkmenistan after Niyazov's death, the Eurasian Transition Group found that 81 percent of those surveyed want a president who supports democratic reforms, and 55 percent believe their votes will not be counted on election day.
"Berdymukhammedov needs to build up a certain respect, and I believe he will allow some relaxation," said Farid Tuhbatullin, a former political prisoner in Turkmenistan and now the director of the Turkmen Initiative for Human Rights, based in Vienna. "The opposition who live in the West may have a chance to build up a dialogue with the authorities, and then maybe later they may be able to legalize their activity in the country."
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The regime’s grip on the
country and the independent media tightened further
in 2006, with several journalists arrested, one
killed in prison and their families hounded by the
authorities. The death of President Separmurad Nyazov
on 21 December revived hopes of liberalisation in
Central Asia’s most repressive country.
Three journalists and
human rights activists - Annakurban Amanklychev,
Sapardurdy Khajiev and Ogulsapar Muradova - who
helped French TV station
France 2 make a travel programme
about Turkmenistan were arrested on 16 and 18 June.
There were accused of plotting against ‘The
Turkmenbashi” (Father of All Turkmens, as Nyazov
called himself) and their detention announced by the
president’s
Ashkabat TV station. The eventual
charges against them were “illegal possession of arms
and ammunition” and before their secret trial on 25
August, their families were not allowed to visit
them. One witness who saw Amanklychev at the state
security ministry said she was almost unrecognisable
and was being brutally interrogated round the clock.
After a hasty trail during which the defence was not
allowed to speak, Amanklychev and Khajiev were
sentenced to seven years in prison and Muradova to 6
years. They said they would appeal and then no more
was heard of them until the death of the 58-year-old
Muradova was reported on 14 September. She had been
the local correspondent for
Radio Free Europe / Radio
Liberty, had three children and
probably died under torture in prison since her body
had many bruises, traces of internal bleeding and a
large open head wound. No official investigation of
her death was made. All three prisoners had
reportedly been sent to Odovan Depe prison, where
about 4,000 political prisoners are
held.
The three journalists,
who were also activists for the Helsinki Foundation
for Human Rights, had helped make a French TV
documentary called “Turkmenistan: Welcome to
Nyazovland” that was broadcast in France on 28
September. Since their conviction, their friends and
family have been persecuted, lost their jobs and been
constantly watched.
Amanklychev and Khajiev were not among more than
10,000 prisoners amnestied on 16 October by Nyazov on
the 15th anniversary of independence including eight
of the 50 people jailed for “treason” after a
November 2002 bid to assassinate the president. Three
journalists among the 50 - Serdar Rakhimov, Batyr
Berdyev and Ovezmurad Yazmuradov, who were sentenced
to 25 years each - remained in prison and are being
held in an unknown place.
Nyazov ironically inaugurated a “House of Free
Creativity” in Ashgabat on 17 October 2006. The
10-storey, $17 million building shaped like an open
book and shining at night is for regime journalists
and, like many other public works in the country, was
built by the French firm Bouygues.
"This should be considered as a first step of a renewed dialogue with the Turkmen authorities on electoral processes and a range of other issues," said ODIHR Director Ambassador Christian Strohal. "I welcome this invitation and the Turkmen authorities' expressed readiness for co-operation in a constructive spirit."
The Election Support Team will help the OSCE Centre in Ashgabad to follow the election process. Team members will also familiarize themselves with election-related issues, as this is the first time the ODIHR is involved with elections in the country.
The team is not observing nor monitoring the election as deployment of an election observation mission was not possible because of time constraints. A public report is not foreseen.
The experts are set to meet with representatives of State institutions in charge of the organization of the elections, presidential candidates, civil society organizations and the international community.
Turkmenistan was, and
remains, one of the most isolated societies in the
world. Under President Niyazov, who died in December
2006, it was nearly impossible for independent
observers, NGOs and analysts to collect information
about the views, opinions, or thoughts of the Turkmen
public. Except for a few Western European embassies
and the OSCE Mission in Turkmenistan's capital,
Ashgabat, no Western observers could stay in the
country, and journalists were ultimately forced to
leave.
Unfortunately, the political situation did not change
with Niyazov's death. In fact, it got worse. This was
evidenced in the recent Ovadan-Depe prison massacre,
where Turkmen special forces suppressed a riot in a
closely-guarded prison camp outside Ashgabat, leaving
23 people dead. The massacre put to rest any hopes
for a positive transition in Turkmenistan and showed
that the junta, which seized power a month ago, is
determined to continue the reign of terror. Hoping to
legitimize their rule, the junta has scheduled to
stage an election on February 11, 2007, which
analysts agree will be a farce.
Because of Turkmenistan's seclusion, it was and
remains difficult to get an impression of the
electorate's public opinion. ETG is proud to present
one of the first polls, which was supported and
supervised by our organization. With the assistance
of our correspondents in Turkmenistan, ETG-sponsored
pollsters were able to interview over 1,100
individuals from every region in the country.
If you are interested in receiving an electronic
copy, please contact us.