The OSCE must seize the opportunity to press Turkmenistan about its grave shortcomings as a democratic and law-governed state, as the country enters a new phase following President Niazov´s death, according to human rights organizations meeting in Vienna on 11 of January. A presidential election is to take place one month from today.

Turkmen and international human rights organizations, and Turkmen political parties in exile, gathered in Vienna ahead of today’s first OSCE permanent council meeting under the Spanish chairmanship. They discussed how heightened attention currently focused on Turkmenistan can be translated into an assertive and consistent focus from the OSCE chairmanship and participating States.

“Conditions are not in place for a democratic election to choose Niazov´s successor,” said Aaron Rhodes, executive director of the International Helsinki Federation (IHF) and host of the NGO-opposition meeting. “A hand-picked field of candidates, with a frontrunner backed even by the election commission, is not a real democratic choice.”

“The OSCE and its member states must stay attentive to how the political structures

develop in Turkmenistan post-Niazov,” added Farid Tukhbatulin, chairman of the Turkmenistan Initiative for Human Rights (TIHR) and a co-organizer of the meeting: “Turkmenistan under a different dictatorship will be as unacceptable as Niazov was. The OSCE must live up to its fundamental principle that an OSCE state must be a democratic state.”

In an appeal issued by the three organizations convening the NGO-opposition meeting, the TIHR, IHF and Memorial called on any future government of Turkmenistan to end the retrograde practices of Niazov´s regime. His rule saw the population undergo impoverishment and deliberate abasement of services such as education, health and housing, while the country prospered from its oil and natural gas wealth.

The appeal also called for the review of the case of all political prisoners and the prompt release of all prisoners of conscience, freedom of expression and information, legal amendments to enable freedom of association and assembly so that political parties and civil society organizations may form, and investigation into deaths in custody and allegations of torture and ill-treatment.

“We also ask the OSCE to finish the work started four years ago when it activated the Moscow Mechanism to investigate grave human rights abuse in Turkmenistan,” said Vitaly Ponomaryov of Memorial. “It is shameful that in 2003 Turkmenistan was allowed to sabotage that process by not cooperating with Moscow Mechanism rapporteur Prof. Emmanuel Decaux. The OSCE should press the new Turkmenistan authorities on finishing that process in the proper spirit of an OSCE participating state.”

Tukhbatulin´s own imprisonment in Turkmenistan at the time was one of the issues Prof. Decaux sought to highlight. “I ask the OSCE to remember Decaux`s comments quoting former Czech President Vaclav Havel,” Tukhbatulin said: “´Some international organizations are dying of being polite.’”

The HIVOS Foundation contributed to the support of this meeting.

For more information:

Aaron Rhodes, Executive Director, IHF +43-676-635-6612

Farid Tukhbatulin, Chairman, Turkmen Initiative for Human Rights, +43 – 1 – 944 13 27

Vitaly Ponomaryov, Director of Central Asia Monitoring Programme, Human Rights Centre Memorial, +7 – 495 790 74 56 or +7 – 432 – 34 77

The declaration from the NGO meeting is available at: www.ihf-hr.org