A court in Turkmenabat has sentenced Turkmen civil activist Murat Dushemov to eight years in prison following a closed-door trial in a fabricated case aimed at silencing his civic activism.
The court found Dushemov guilty of assaulting a fellow inmate at the LB-E/12 prison in Seydi, where he was serving a previous four-year sentence on politically motivated charges. Authorities alleged that Dushemov beat another prisoner just days before his scheduled release.
Dushemov denied the charges, calling them slander. Through his state-appointed lawyer, he said the inmate in question deliberately harmed himself by banging his head against a wall.
The activist’s mother Tazegul Mammedova was informed of the hearing only the night before while she was receiving medical treatment in Dashoguz. She rushed to Turkmenabat but was not allowed to enter the courtroom.
For more than three months, Dushemov was held in pretrial detention at LB-D/9, known as Abdy Shukur prison. Officials concealed his whereabouts from his family, repeatedly denied his mother visitation, and delayed the trial without explanation.
Security forces also pressured his family, placing his mother and brother under surveillance, tapping their phones, summoning them to police stations, and conducting raids on their home. Dushemov’s brother and sister were unlawfully added to the government’s travel blacklist.
The latest conviction is believed to fall under Article 107 of Turkmenistan’s criminal code — “intentional infliction of serious bodily harm” — though details remain unclear.
Dushemov was due for release on June 14 after serving his earlier sentence. Instead, days later, it emerged that a new case had been fabricated against him, ensuring he would not leave prison.
Even before his first prison term, Turkmen security services were constantly “working” on Murat Dushemov. They tried to dissuade him from speaking out, from “asserting his rights,” even offered him a job in the housing administration, and when they realized it was useless, they staged a provocation and put him in prison for four years.
During one of these conversations at a police station, Deputy Minister of national security Orazgeldi Meredov noticed a small booklet in Dushemov’s hands. He asked what it was, to which Murat replied: “This is the Constitution of Turkmenistan, which guarantees me freedom of expression.” The security officer merely smirked: “Your constitution will be rolled up into a tube and shoved up your ass!”
This episode shows how the law is treated in Turkmenistan. Dushemov’s prosecution is entirely politically motivated. The activist’s case has already drawn the attention of major international human rights groups and a UN special rapporteur. And the enormous prison term with which it ended leaves just as enormous a stain on the reputation of Turkmenistan and personally on President Serdar Berdimuhamedov. In all new international relations, whether political or economic, Turkmenistan will enter with precisely this stamp of shame — as a country that does not respect its own laws or the activist who defended them.
