Day two of the session of review by the UN Human Rights Committee of Turkmenistan's compliance with the International Convenant on Civil and Political Rights wasn't any improvement over the poor performance of the first day.
I was tied up with other commitments but I caught up with the Turkmen emigres who went to audit the session, and got their reports.
On the first day, Yazdursun Gurbannazarova, head of the Presidential Institute for Democracy and Human Rights, told us that there was wonderful cooperation with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) -- seminars, conferences, talks -- improvement of legislation!
But did they visit the prisons, we wondered?
Some of the Committee's experts asked about this, and finally First Deputy Foreign Minister of Turkmenistan Vepa Hadjiyev had some answers.
He said that indeed, the ICRC had "visited a prison" -- well, sort of.
It turns out it was an "LTP" -- the Russian acronym from a Soviet-era institution for -- literally -- "curative work prophylaxis" -- or work therapy for alcoholics and drug addicts.
I've visited some of these institutions in Russia -- they are pretty raunchy places with drunks dragged in and strapped into chairs to rant and rave their heads off until they pass out, covered in their own vomit. Frankly, I've observed the exact same thing in Bellevue Hospital's "non-elopement" adult psychiatric ward where especially violent alcoholics are brought in -- sometimes rolled up in big pieces of canvas to restrain them or strapped to cots. The difference really comes with the training of the police and the procedures and the tendency to handle drunks less punitively in the US and more as a medical problem than in a place like Turkmenistan.
To be sure, in Turkmenistan, there is a medical aspect to this facility, but the "work therapy" concept and the fact that any one who is a vagrant or just marring the beautiful marble landscapes of the city can find themselves dumped into one of these places.
Not fun, but even so, they aren't like the prisons, and especially not like the remote, secret prisons where political prisoners are held. People aren't held in them for as long, and they don't have the same punitive regimes of rationing of food or solitary confinement. I don't have any first-hand knowledge of the LTP in Turkmenistan, but I'm going to take a wild guess and say it isn't that different from every other post-Soviet LTP.
So there are two such facilities outside Ashgabat in Ahal, I'm told, one for foreigners (that would mean "Iranians" or "Turks" I suppose) and one for locals. Likely the ICRC was taken to the "nicer" one for foreigners that maybe had a more recent paint job or furious tree-planting -- but the Turkmen delegation declined to say.
I suppose if the Turkmens have to start with something shy of an actual prison, the LTP is a good start -- except, they're not serious, I don't think. I think this is a dodge and a distraction, and busy-work to show off to the bosses. No doubt Turkmenistan's LTPs aren't a day at the beach, but they are nothing like Ovan-Depe or Seydi prison in the desert -- awful places where people languish for years, about which the Turkmen Lawyers' Association has reported.
There was another troubling aspect to what was reportedly said by the Turkmen officials, and that was that the ICRC was helping them with advice on how they should build a new women's prison colony so that it would be consistent with "international norms."
Now this is a hustle that the ICRC really shouldn't get involved with. It really reeks of manipulation, because there is really no such thing as context-free application of "international norms" here in a place like Turkmenistan.
The ICRC aren't architects and building specialists, although they may have ideas about what might make for a "humane" facility -- basics like windows that don't have muzzles on them (like all the post-Soviet prisons do) so that fresh air isn't so hard to get; beds spread apart at a greater regulation distance that helps reduce the incidence of tuberculosis; and so on. But you could have a lovely women's colony with lacy curtains on the windows and down pillows on the bed -- but all the wrong people could be put in them -- because there is no due process of civil rights. It really strikes me that ICRC shouldn't be in the business of helping a repressive country like Turkmenistan to design their prisons in any fashion -- and yet if true, I can see how this might have happened -- it's about getting your foot in the door.
The unfortunate aspect of all this is that the ICRC does their work in strict confidence with the state party in order to gain access and so they are not at all likely to comment on this. So we'll remain in the dark until either the Turkmen government says something, and that will be a deliberate distortion, or some relative or rare human rights activist gets some information and reports it. In other words -- we'll remain in the dark.
One interesting piece of good news I learned from the emigres -- which the Turkmen delegation announced at the UN on March 16th -- is that Ovezgeldy Atayev, the hapless head of parliament, unceremoniously removed from his post and arrested when Berdymukhamedov came barging into power and found him procedurally in the way of his takeover (or his siloviki group's takeover) has now been released from prison (and evidently with his spouse, who was also jailed along with him). However, he's likely essentially under house arrest, like other such freed persons. Apparently, this was a gesture toward the HRC session.
One of the members apparently tried manfully to apply one of those methods UN officials often apply on such authoritarian state parties, which goes like this, "Let's pretend you're normal, and ask you normal questions and expect a normal answer."
So it went like this: "Did you work with any NGOs in the preparation of this report?" The answer was "no," so the member had at it again. "But are you in touch with NGOs and do you get their reports?"
Answer: "I have all their addresses and phone numbers on my Super-ipad," said the Turkmen official. This earned some smiles from the Turkmens in the audience who found it touchingly provincial that the ipad was referred to as "Super" -- like a lot of Western gadgets that people don't always know quite how to work. Not to mention the "touching" aspect of this official essentially compiling intelligence on all these people -- even as he never really consulted with them. And now he has pictures to go with his dossiers, as officials demonstratively photographed the emigres during the session.
So, the UN basically said "mind the gap," and we'll have to wait another five years or more to have a chance to revisit these particular issues with Turkmenistan.
One marvels -- again -- at that persistent game of behaving "as if" things were normal. Says the UN press release: "one expert wanting to know if today’s meeting with the Committee was being broadcast to Turkmens “as we speak”." Instead of just saying, "No, the president controls every second of TV and radio broadcasting and we confiscate cell phones from people trying to independently report events," this is what the Turkmens had to say:
Regarding public access to today’s meeting, Vepa Hadjiyev, First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, said: “We would be delighted to provide open access and information.” Turkmenistan had “a great deal of means” for providing information to its people on what was happening in the international community. Comments were made on various websites and information was readily provided through Turkmenistan’s media and resource centres.
All of that is balderdash of course, and the real way this information will reach at least some people in Turkmenistan is through the work of Chronicles of Turkmenistan, which posted a report of the session which will get picked up by RFE/RL and other broadcasters and heard or seen by some people inside the country.
Sadly, not even the official press releases from the UN Press Center will be seen -- much less the emigre reports -- at the UN's website in Turkmenistan, which never, ever covers the human rights tready body sessions -- and really should be pressured to do so.
