Radio “Azatlyk” correspondent Soltan Achilova, and human rights activist Natalya Shabunts are suffering from recurrent harassment and threats.
Young men in civilian clothes who are constantly on the look-out near their houses follow the females in broad daylight in a defiant manner as soon as the latter leave their houses.
At the same time, at the sight of a telephone or a camera directed at them they turn their back or retreat, fearing to get into the picture.
Radio “Azatlyk” has previously reported that one of these perpetrators threatened Soltan Achilova with reprisal for attempting to take a photo of queues lining up in front of grocery stores.
This is the fourth attack on the correspondent in 2017 alone.
Ordinary residents often trigger threats and attacks. For instance, in August 2017 two unidentified females verbally assaulted Natalya Shabunts in an attempt to provoke a fight.
Relatives of activists are also suffering from the attacks.
In April this year, in the middle of the night, two unidentified young men broke windows of the car owned by S. Achilova’s son. As can be seen on the video, the men clearly knew which car they targeted to break the windows. Obviously, the reason was to exert pressure on the journalist.
In the night of 28-29 October 2017, unknown perpetrators threw stones and bricks at the windows of the apartment of Khalida Izbastinova, mother of Farid Tukhbatullin, Chairperson of “Turkmen Initiative for Human Rights” (TIHR) and editor-in-chief of the website “Chronicles of Turkmenistan”.
Those responsible have so far not been found.