It shouldn’t come at all as any surprise to hear that Turkmenistan is trying to silence exiled dissidents by going after relatives still in the country.
Pressure on dissenters and their associates or families has long been a common factor in Turkmenistan according to Farid Tukhbatulin. He heads the Turkmen Initiative for Human Rights, another Turkmen rights group.
“If the authorities cannot get those who are abroad then their families and relatives who live in the country are harassed,” said Tukhbatulin, speaking from Vienna. He added that his brother had been sacked from his job earlier this year. “He was fired because of my rights work although he had nothing to do with my activities and is in no way involved in my work.”
[Tajigul] Begmedova [head of the Turkmen Helsinki Foundation] said that the authorities have even harassed her school friends, university fellows, former friends and colleagues, who were not necessarily even aware of her human rights work.
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