AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL

External Document

AI Index: EUR 61/005/2007 (Public)

News Service No: 021

8 February 2007

Embargo Date: 8 February 200700:01GMT

Amnesty International's recommendations to the new government of Turkmenistan

The Turkmenistani authorities should implement the following recommendations as a matter of priority and the international community should use all available institutional channels provided by intergovernmental organizations as well as in bi-lateral contacts to consistently raise these recommendations with the Turkmenistani authorities:

1. Immediately and unconditionally release all prisoners of conscience.

2. Ensure that all political prisoners and those convicted in connection with the November 2002 alleged assassination attempt on President Niyazov are retried in proceedings which meet international standards on fairness and to which international trial observers have access.

3. Disclose information about all deaths in custody that occurred in suspicious circumstances and initiate impartial and thorough investigations into all allegations of torture or other ill-treatment; publish the scope, methods and findings of these investigations and bring to justice those found responsible.

4. Ensure respect and protect the human rights of political dissidents, religious believers, civil society activists and journalists and ensure that they are able to carry out their peaceful activities free from harassment and without threat of detention and imprisonment and other human rights violations.

5. Ensure the protection of the human rights of the family members of political dissidents, religious believers, journalists and civil society activists.

6. Lift travel restrictions imposed on dissidents and their families.

7. Grant the International Committee of the Red Cross and other independent observers access to prisoners including those imprisoned in connection with the November 2002 alleged assassination attempt on President Niyazov.

8. Introduce legislative provisions to ensure that a civilian alternative of non-punitive length is available to all those, whose conscientiously-held beliefs preclude them from performing military service.

9. Promptly initiate fundamental reforms of domestic law and institutions to implement the country’s obligations under the United Nations human rights treaties that Turkmenistan is a party to.

10. Issue standing invitations to the special procedures of the UN Human Rights Council that have requested to visit Turkmenistan and grant access to international non-governmental human rights organizations.

11. Fully implement the points set out in the resolutions adopted by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and by the United Nations General Assembly in recent years.

12. Implement the recommendations of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (issued 2005), the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (issued 2006), the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (issued 2006).

13. Fully implement the recommendations set out in the 2003 report by Prof. Emmanuel Decaux, who was appointed as rapporteur on Turkmenistan by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.

Public Document

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