Turkmenistan: UN Critical in Geneva, Upbeat in Ashgabat

UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and his wife visit Turkmenbashi Ruhi Mosque and Turkmenbashi mausoleum, April 2010

The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has concluded its latest session, where it reviewed the Turkmen government's report on its compliance with the treaty on these rights.

The UN in Geneva didn't mince words:

Areas of concern included the negative consequences of the policy of “Turkmenisation” which resulted in discrimination against minorities, the strong negative traditional practices discriminating against women, high levels of unemployment, the absence of independent unions, the lack of information on the extent of human trafficking, child marriages, the forced relocation of human rights activists, and widespread hospital closures. The Committee recommended that the State party address discrimination against minorities and women, enhance access to employment, criminalize domestic violence, uphold the freedom of religion enshrined in the Constitution, and cease the practice of censorship of electronic communication and blocking of internet.

What a contrast with the the UN's web site in Ashgabat, where the conclusions of this particular UN treaty body's review -- like others before it -- are simply not published on its site.

Instead, there are only positive and upbeat stories like this one about the granting of Turkmen nationality to 3,000 stateless people.

Turkmenistan has recently signed two UN conventions: the Status of Stateless Persons and Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness.

All well and good, but there are relatively few stateless persons in authoritarian Turkmenistan, and a more severe problem -- about which the UN has been silent -- is the enormous pressure being put on Russian speakers now with dual Russian and Turkmen passports to give up their Russian passports, and accept new Turkmen passports in order to enjoy basic rights such as education, health care and travel. Turkmenistan also still maintains a blacklist of people it will not let leave or enter the country.

As it happens, you can read about this issue on the website of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) (it's a reprint of an article by News Briefing Central Asia). But not on the UN's site in Ashgabat.

Another upbeat news story from untuk.org is the decision of the UN Country Team to expand UN visibility by delivering lectures to the Foreign Relations Institute of the Foreign Ministry of Turkmenistan.

But the UN is often reluctant to gain visibility for the critical findings of its treaty bodies. When it does cover treaty bodies, it will have something like yet another positive piece about a student at the Institute for International Relations who took an interest in UNICEF and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Strangely, while the article even mentions how UNICEF often has to be critical, and "raises sensitive issues with many governments and societies globally regardless of their economic and political development," those kinds of statements aren't found on the site. If you know where to look, you can find that in 2006, the UN did have many critical things to say about children's rights in Turkmenistan, including about juvenile detention.

Turkmenistan will next be reviewed at the UN Human Rights Committee at a session March 12-30 in New York.