On 12 April 2022 the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken presented the release of the 2021 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices.
In a 32-page section devoted to Turkmenistan, it was pointed out that Parliamentary elections were held in Turkmenistan in 2021, in the course of which the incumbent President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov was elected chairperson of the Halk Maslahaty (upper house of parliament), making him head of both the executive and the legislative branches of the government.
The report includes significant human rights violations, also reported by independent Turkmen media outlets:
unlawful or arbitrary killings, torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment by police and prison officials;
harsh and life-threatening prison conditions;
arbitrary detention and politically motivated reprisals against opposition activists, dissidents and independent journalists in another country, as well as their family members;
serious restrictions on internet freedom including censorship and site blocking;
substantial interference with the freedom of peaceful assembly and freedom of association including overly restrictive laws on the organization, funding, or operation of nongovernmental organizations and civil society organizations;
restrictive laws on and persecution of international human rights organizations;
operation of nongovernmental organizations and civil society organizations;
particularly severe restrictions of religious freedom;
severe restrictions on freedom of movement and residence and on the right to leave the country;
inability of citizens to change their government peacefully through free and fair elections;
serious government corruption;
lack of investigation of and accountability for gender-based violence;
the existence of laws criminalizing consensual same-sex sexual conduct between adults;
significant restrictions on workers’ freedom of association and the existence of forced and child labor.
The report highlights that in 2021 officials in the security services and elsewhere in the government committed human rights abuses and engaged in corruption with impunity.
Detail and specific examples of violations are available here (in English).
In March 2022 the US Department of State published a statement to concur with the concerns described in the needs assessment conducted by the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) of the Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe regarding the Presidential elections in Turkmenistan held in 2022.
The ODIHR assessment noted that Turkmenistan has not proved its election processes to be free, fair, or competitive.
“We call on the Government of Turkmenistan to implement ODIHR recommendations in order to align its electoral system with the standards described in the needs assessment”, – the US Department of State said.The post The 2021 report by the US Department of State: Turkmen President heads both the executive and legislative branches of the government; human right violations are not investigated first appeared on Chronicles of Turkmenistan.