• World Report 2013: Turkmenistan
    Jan 10, 2013
    Following February 2012 presidential elections, President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov retained unchallenged power, and Turkmenistan remains one of the world’s most repressive countries.
  • World Report 2012: Turkmenistan
    Jan 22, 2012
    With presidential elections in Turkmenistan scheduled for February 2012, President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov’s authoritarian rule remains entrenched, highlighting Turkmenistan’s status as one of the world’s most repressive countries.
  • World Report 2011: Turkmenistan
    Jan 24, 2011
    In 2010 the Turkmenistan government continued a return to the repressive methods of a previous era.
  • Turkmenistan
    Jan 20, 2010
    The Turkmen government tightened repression in this already extremely repressive and authoritarian country. While retaining excessive restrictions on freedom of expression, association, and religion, it embarked on a new assault on freedom of movement and the right to education by preventing dozens of students studying in private universities abroad from leaving the country.
  • Turkmenistan
    Jan 14, 2009

    In the two years since the death of Turkmenistan's president-for-life Saparmurad Niazov, the government under President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov has abolished aspects of his cult of personality, adopted a new constitution, and has begun to reverse some of Niazov's most ruinous social policies. The government ended the country's self-imposed isolation and has attracted unprecedented international interest in the country's hydrocarbon wealth.  

  • Turkmenistan
    Jan 5, 2006
    Headed by president-for-life Saparmurat Niazov, Turkmenistan remains one of the most repressive and closed countries in the world. Regressive government policies in education, culture, and health care caused increasing concern in the international community. In an attempt to mollify international critics, Niazov conceded to soften registration rules for religious groups, revoked the notorious law providing for a U.S.$50,000 fee for registering a marriage with a foreigner, and granted citizenship to over sixteen thousand refugees and stateless persons. Despite these small positive steps, the overall human rights situation in Turkmenistan remains dismal.
  • Turkmenistan
    Jan 5, 2005
    The regime of president-for-life Saparmurat Niazov is one of the most repressive in the world. It crushes independent thought, controls virtually all aspects of civic life, and actively isolates the country from the outside world. The perverse cult of personality around President Niazov dominates public life and the education system. Civil society, already on the brink of extinction, this year took another blow with a new law criminalizing involvement in unregistered nongovernmental or religious groups. Although 2004 saw the abolition of exit visas and a slight mitigation of the laws on religious freedom and nongovernmental organizations (NGOS), in practice the rights to freedom of movement and conscience are severely restricted. Indeed, the human rights situation in Turkmenistan today is noticeably worse than it was a few years ago.