Sheep's head by home of human rights activist Natalya Shabants. Photo by Chronicles of Turkmenistan
Every once in a while we see the creepy, horrid underbelly of the Turkmen regime, behind the facade of the gleaming white marble palaces.
A human rights activist woke up today to find a bloody sheep's head outside her door, the independent news site Chronicles of Turkmenistan has reported. Ugh.
No, this isn't a studio head in an episode of "The Godfather," this is real life.
Natalya Shabunts, a human rights advocate in Ashgabat (one of the few remaining public critics of the regime in Turkmenistan), criticized the elections colourfully as being like the Russian fairy-tale about the seven goats. (There are seven very docile candidates who are all under the president's control.) Then, yesterday on February 2, she gave an interview to Radio Azatlyk.
For men in this region, being called "a goat" is a terrible insult, because it's the prison slang term for raped prisoners and is a generic slur for homosexuals. Natalya was invoking a children's fairy tale, but it may have been taken even worse than intended.
While it might have been an angry neighbour who was insulted on behalf of Turkmen manhood who did this, chances are that angry neighbour doesn't have Internet service or even listens to Radio Azatlyk, and wouldn't have known that Natalya even wrote such an article on chrono-tm.org, which in any case, is blocked.
So it's most likely the secret police "sending a message" -- and a creepy message it is, indeed.
Earlier, on January 31, Shabunts found a cross made of white powder on the mat outside her door. I don't know what that's supposed to mean in this predominantly Muslim country where there isn't any chapter of the Ku Klux Klan, but I think it means "We don't like you, get out."
