His Excellency Saparmurat Niazov
President of Turkmenistan
c/o Permanent Representative to UN
Email: turkmenistan@un.int

4 July 2006

Your Excellency,

We are writing on behalf of the World Association of Newspapers and the World Editors Forum, which represent 18,000 publications in 102 countries, to express our serious concern at the jailing of a journalist, her three children and three other human rights activists.

According to reports, Ogoulsapar Muradova, correspondent in Turkmenistan for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, was arrested in Ashgabat on 18 June. Members of the security forces went to her home and took her to the interior ministry without any arrest warrant or official summons. The same services detained her adult children, Sona, Maral and Berdy Muradova, on 19 June.

Human rights activist Annakurban Amanklytchev, who was working in collaboration with the broadcast company Galaxie-Presse and French television channel France 2 on a travel documentary, was arrested on 16 June. Mr Amanklytchev has reportedly been subjected to violent interrogations since his arrest. Two other human rights activists, Elena Ovezova and Sapardurdy Khakiev, were also arrested on 16 June.

The authorities reportedly claim that the journalist and human rights activists were involved in a plot against you.

We respectfully remind you that the detention of Mr Amanklytchev, Ms Muradova and their colleagues for preparing a television programme is a clear breach of the right to freedom of expression, which is guaranteed by numerous international conventions, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 19 of the Declaration states: ’Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes the freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media, regardless of frontiers.’

We respectfully call on you to ensure that Mr Amanklytchev, Ms Muradova and their colleagues are immediately released from prison and that all charges against them are dropped. We urge you to take all necessary steps to ensure that in future your country fully respects international standards of freedom of expression.

We look forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience.

Yours sincerely,

Gavin O’Reilly
President
World Association of Newspapers

George Brock
President
World Editors Forum

cc : Mr Kofi Annan, Secretary-General, United Nations
Mr Koichiro Matsuura, Director-General, UNESCO

WAN is the global organization for the newspaper industry, with formal representative status at the United Nations, UNESCO and the Council of Europe. The organization groups 18,000 newspapers in 102 countries, 11 news agencies and nine regional and world-wide press groups. WAN is non-governmental and non-profit.