Two journalists and a human rights activist went on trial today in the Turkmen capital of Ashgabat. The hearings lasted just a few minutes and ended with the judge handing long jail sentences to all three defendants, Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) reported.
Ogulsapar Muradova, 58, local correspondent for the US-funded RFE/RL, and Annakurban Amanklychev, 35, who works with a French production company, Galaxie-Presse, were given six-year jail sentences for "illegally possessing cassettes," along with a fellow human rights activist, Sapardurdy Khajiev, 47, who got seven years for the same offence. All intend to appeal against the convictions.
The trial opened today at 10 am and the hearings took place behind closed doors at the Azatlyk district court in Ashgabat, where Turkmen dissidents are usually tried. Azatlyk — which means freedom or liberty — is also the name of RFE/RL in Turkmen language.
Tajigul Begmedova, who chairs the exiled Turkmen Helsinki Foundation (THF) rights group and is Khajiev's sister-in-law, told RFE/RL's Turkmen Service the trial was over in no time. She said lawyers would appeal today's verdict.
"According to the information we got from their lawyers, Sapardurdy Khajiev was sentenced to seven years in a high-security jail," she said. " Amanklychev got seven years in a regular prison and Muradova — six years, also in a regular prison. They were all charged with possessing ammunition. Ogulsapar [Muradova] denied the charges brought against her, and the presiding judge used that to give her a heavier sentence. Sapardurdy [Khajiev] also denied the charges brought against him."
The three are activists of the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights and were arrested between 16 and 18 June. They have spent more than two months incommunicado in a National Security Service pretrial detention centre.
THF activist Ammanklychev was mentioned in a June 19 televised address in which National Security Minister Geldymukhammed Ashirmukhammedov claimed to have foiled an alleged foreign-funded plot to destabilise the country. Ashirmukhammedov said the purported conspiracy also involved a number of Western diplomats. Yet, none of these allegations ever resurfaced in the run-up to the trial, RFE/RL said.
Human rights defenders said the arms and ammunitions reportedly found in Amanklychev's car upon his arrest were most likely planted by security officials. They also blamed authorities for other violations committed during the pretrial detention of the three codefendants.
"According to our information, the trial was behind closed doors," Begmedova told RFE/RL. "The court's building was cordoned off by armed soldiers. We also learned that all other pending court cases that were expected to be heard today were suspended. Neither Annakurban [Amanklychev]'s lawyer, nor Ogulsapar [Muradova]'s had been officially notified about the beginning of the trial. The lawyers were not allowed to meet with their clients or to bring them water and food [during their pretrial detention]."
Begmedova said only Judge Guncha Khajikulieva, State Prosecutor Murad Muratliev, and the defendants were allowed to attend the hearings. "Many people tried to attend today's trial," she said. "But all the streets leading to the court's building were closed. Relatives had arrived at 9 am, hoping they would be allowed into the courtroom. But they were not allowed in. Even lawyers were authorised to meet with clients for just one minute before being kicked out by soldiers."
Turkmen authorities never specified the reasons for holding them. But the state-controlled press accused Muradova of smearing Turkmenistan's international reputation. The newspaper Neitralny Turkmenistan said in June that Muradova had reported "slanderous information" about Turkmenistan to Begmedova in Bulgaria.
On June 19, President Saparmurat Niyazov issued a statement on national television condemning Muradova, Amanklychev, Ovezova, and Khadzhiyev. "I don't know why [the detainees] are engaged in such dirty business in Turkmenistan, a peaceful country where justice is ruling and where nobody is disgraced. ... Let people condemn the traitors. The entire population is proud of their motherland, whereas they are trying to harm it," Amnesty International quoted Niyazov as saying.
The pressure on Muradova mounted this year, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). In May, she told RFE/RL and THF that she was being followed by security agents. She said agents were watching her apartment around the clock, threatening her with eviction from her home, and threatening to imprison her son and two daughters if she did not stop contributing to RFE/RL.
The day before her arrest, Muradova said that arsonists set her elderly mother's home on fire. Neighbours helped put out the blaze, THF reported. Authorities also jailed Muradova's three adult children for two weeks in late June, according to reports.
Meanwhile, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) said it was "disgusted" by the "absurd, unjust and disgraceful" prison sentences. It condemned the decision of the court as orchestrated by "President-for-Life" Saparmurat Niyazov as part of a secret prosecution and a trial that lasted only two hours without any independent observers present. "Niyazov himself decides what prison sentences are to be handed down in a country where press freedom does not exist under a regime that is one of the most brutal in the world towards the media," RSF said.
President Niyazov, who calls himself the "Turkmenbashi" ("Father of All Turkmens"), is on the RSF international list of 34 "predators of press freedom." Turkmenistan is in 165th place (third from the bottom) of the RSF 2005 Worldwide Press Freedom Index. Only Eritrea and North Korea have a worse record.
