By Bruce Pannier
Prague, 2 April
(RFE/RL)
Russian journalist Nikolai Mitrokhin, a correspondent for the Moscow-based Panorama news agency, has visited and written about Turkmenistan on numerous occasions since the country gained independence in 1991.
He is one of only a few independent journalists to have been allowed to enter the country in the past few years. The Turkmen government limits the opportunities for foreign journalists to visit the country and often restricts them to certain areas.
Given these circumstances, it�s often hard for journalists to independently confirm claims made by human-rights organizations and other governments concerning freedom of the press and individual rights in Turkmenistan.
Mitrokhin managed to enter Turkmenistan again last month and recently discussed his observations with Roznazar Khuodaiberdiev of RFE/RL�s Turkmen Service. His visit lasted several days and he visited Dashkhovuz, the capital Ashgabat and Charjoi.
RFE/RL asked Mitrokhin about what he was able to see in Turkmenistan during his visit.
Mitrokhin said: �You ask what is new? I took my last trip to Turkmenistan a year ago. I can�t say if this is good or bad, but nothing has actually changed since then. The only object of general attention is the tower built in Ashgabat on top of which stands a statue of the leader President Saparmurat Niyazov, which revolves three times a day.�
Mitrokhin said several presidential amnesties given to some 20,000 prisoners since the start of 1999 have left the streets of some Turkmen cities unsafe.
There is no independent confirmation of his claim. The Turkmen Foreign Ministry was contacted this week by RFE/RL but refused comment on Mitrokhin�s claim. However, Niyazov himself admitted earlier this year that the crime rate in the capital is on the rise but gave no reasons for the increase.
Mitrokhin reported that people told him that they used to fear the militia, but they now are more afraid of the amnestied criminals. He said that people in Ashgabat told him there had been �a series of murders of women and armed robberies.� He said those amnestied included �lots of drug addicts needing money for new drugs.� He said people are afraid to be on the streets at night.
Mitrokhin said that authorities in the Turkmen city of Tashshauz have begun a program under which students are taken to see prisons as a way to persuade them to avoid criminal activities.
�The most sensational local news is the school excursions to prisons as a preventative measure against gangsters acquiring a mystique among children. Kids see the reality for themselves and don�t like it. I also heard that Ashgabat is following the Tashshauz experience, but I didn�t get any confirmation about that.�
Mitrokhin said he also heard reports of violations of human rights aimed at Christian sects, specifically naming the Baptists as being harassed by the authorities. Other allegations include intimidation of people trying to form a union and a journalists� association. In both these cases, Mitrokhin claims to have heard that Turkmen State Security representatives broke up meetings and recorded the names of those in attendance.
The claims cannot be independently confirmed. But in a recent report by the U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists, Niyazov was listed as one of the world�s 10 worst enemies of the press, lending credibility to the allegations concerning the problems with the Turkmen journalists� union.
And the U.S. State Department�s recent human rights report on Turkmenistan lends credence to Mitrokhin�s information about Baptists being harassed. The U.S. report notes that Turkmenistan�s recently amended law on religion reaffirms a number of important religious freedoms but also tightens government control of religious groups. The report says that a requirement that religious organizations have at least 500 members to be legally registered has prevented some minority religions from legally establishing themselves.
Mitrokhin also gave some insight into social conditions in Turkmenistan. He said there is poor availability of food and that even in �the homes of the local elite, the food they had on the table was, in the best case, on the level of a very poor Moscow family.�
Mitrokhin believes he is unlikely to be allowed to return to Turkmenistan any time in the near future. Ashgabat announced last month that, beginning in June, it will require even citizens of other CIS countries � excluding Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan � to obtain visas before traveling to the country.
MOSCOW, April 4 (AFP)
The question of a union between Russia and Belarus will be put to a referendum in both countries �this autumn�, Yevgeny Seleznev, speaker of Russia�s lower house of parliament the State Duma, said Sunday.
Seleznev said the Russia-Belarus parliamentary council had agreed at a meeting Sunday in Saint Petersburg that a bill on the union should go before the parliaments of the two countries May 11-12.
The text should be accepted �this year� by the heads of state and put to the populations of both countries �this autumn,� said Seleznev.
�In the year 2000, Russian and Belarus will form a union of two sovereign states,� he said, stressing the two countries will have a �united parliament, united executive powers and a common budget.�
Russian President Boris Yeltsin and his Belarussian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko signed a declaration in December 1998 announcing the creation in 1999 of a unified state incorporating the two slavic countries.
The huge majority of Russians � 80 percent � approve of the union against just 14 percent against it, a public opinion survey in December showed. Both states were former members of the Soviet Union, which broke up in 1991, and are members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).
TASHKENT, April 2
(AFP)
Uzbek President Islam Karimov said he was prepared to �rip off the heads� of criminals to restore order after two separate shooting incidents left 17 people dead this week in the Central Asian republic.
�I�m prepared to rip off the heads of 200 people, to sacrifice their lives, in order to save peace and calm in the republic,� Karimov told journalists at the airport in Tashkent late Thursday before leaving for a summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States in Moscow.
Karimov also said he would issue a decree allowing the arrest of the suspects� fathers if the sons cannot be found.
�If my child chose such a path, I myself would rip off his head,� he said.
Nine people were killed early Wednesday when four men hijacked a bus near Bukhara on the steppe southwest of the Uzbek capital, Tashkent. Two of the victims were passengers.
Karimov gave a posthumous award to the four security officers who died as a result of a shoot-out with the hijackers.
The Uzbek president denied reports that the hijacking was done in retaliation for a crackdown on religious believers and opposition members following a spate of car bombs which shook Tashkent in February.
�They were not pursuing political goals. These people were genuine thieves and bandits,� Karimov said.
In a separate incident in Tashkent Monday, eight people were killed � five suspects and three police officers � after a shoot-out between police and several residents when the police were checking their residential permits at their apartment, a police officer told AFP.
Official newspapers reported that the suspects were Wahabbis, a puritanical Moslem sect that has been targeted in the crackdown following the bombings.
Security in the capital was stepped up this week with soldiers carrying automatic weapons posted around government buildings and at bazaars.
All Over the Globe is published by IPA House.
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