Turkmenistan: Prisoner of conscience released
Posted: December 1, 2006
Released prisoner of conscience Gurbandurdy Durdykuliev. © Private
Prisoner of conscience Gurbandurdy Durdykuliev was released in Turkmenistan and returned home to his family in the early hours of Thursday April 14, 2006.
In January 2004, Gurbandurdy Durdykuliev had written to the president of Turkmenistan, Saparmurad Niyazov, and the governor of the Balkan region. He had asked them to give permission for a two-day demonstration.
He wrote: “We want to carry out a peaceful demonstration...to express our disagreement with the policies of the President.”
A few weeks later, he was taken from his house to a psychiatric hospital.
Several medical staff reportedly told his relatives that they could not find any signs of mental illness but that the authorities had pressed them to diagnose him as mentally ill.
The authorities tried to prevent information about Gurbandurdy Durdykuliev from reaching international human rights organisations. They disconnected the family's telephone line and pressured his wife not to pass on information about her husband's case to media outlets.
His wife regularly travelled to see him but was frequently denied access.
Amnesty International considered Gurbandurdy Durdykuliev a prisoner of conscience. His case featured in Amnesty's 2005 Write-a-thon, and Amnesty supporters in Canada and around the world wrote him messages of support as well as pressing for the Turkmen authorities to release him.
After his release, Gurbandurdy Durdykuliev expressed thanks for the telegrams, postcards and letters that had been sent to him in the hospital, and his family also expressed their thanks for the support shown by Amnesty International members.