In the night of 25 January an unidentified individual cut an exterior pipe of the air conditioning unit for the apartment of independent Turkmen journalist Soltan Achilova.
Achilova and her disabled son live on the first floor of an apartment block in the residential district of Pakarhat-7. At 1:50 a.m. they were woken up by a noise outside and from the window saw a man fleeing in a yellow jacket worn by employees of the Ashgabat public utilities department.
In the morning Soltan Achilova called the district police officer three times but her calls were not answered.
Achilova, who has been assaulted and persecuted often in the past,claims that the police always turn a blind eye and do not respond to her calls when intimidation campaigns are initiated against her.
Later she submitted a complaint to the police department of Berkarar etrap in Ashgabat.
Achilova has no hope that the police will start looking into the case because a few years ago perpetrators broke windows in the car owned by her son.
On that occasion police did not take any action despite her complaint and the camera footage.
According to Achilova, because of poor heating in apartment blocks of the residential district and constant pipe cracking, she uses the conditioner to heat her apartment. Now she has been left without heating in the winter.
Similar intimidation has been used to silence other residents who have actively tried to defend their rights.
For example, an unidentified man cut off the telephone wire to Gulsenem Taganova’s apartment after she had requested accommodation to which she was entitled.The post External sabotage to apartment of independent Turkmen journalist Soltan Achilova first appeared on Chronicles of Turkmenistan.