The campaign “Prove They Are Alive” has published an updated list of the disappeared in Turkmenistan’s prisons.
The fate of a few individuals, who fell victim to enforced disappearances, became known and their names have been deleted from the report. However, the experts identified the same number of new cases. The number of documented cases of enforced disappearance in prison in this updated list is 121.
Human rights defenders report that cases of Kemal Saparov and Kakadjan Khakbaev, Turkmen students who were studying in Saint Petersburg and convicted in 2018 shortly after their return to Turkmenistan for holidays, were added to the updated list.
A case of Sultan Bebitov, who was convicted in 2013 in the case of the Group of Bakhrom Saparov, was also included.
Seyran Mamedov, who was convicted in 2004 of assisting a relative of a Novemberist to flee the country and Ilham Bekhtemirov, were released.
The activist Gulgeldy Annaniyazov has served his 11 year imprisonment term and was transferred from the colony to the village of Karabogaz where he will be kept under control of the local authorities for the next five years.
The campaign “Prove They Are Alive” calls on the international community to exert pressure on Turkmenistan. The prison terms of a number of individuals whose fate is unknown will expire in the near future and activists fear that they will be convicted again on fabricated charges.
The list includes only confirmed cases of enforced disappearances, but their number might be much high since “some prisoners have been held incommunicado since 2002”, according to the human rights defenders.