Posts Tagged ‘Soltan Achilova’

Soltan Achilova – finalist MEA 2021 – denied travel to Geneva Human Rights Week

November 21, 2023

On 21 November, 2023 the Martin Ennals Foundation, joined by HRW and the ISHR, issued the following statement:

The Martin Ennals Foundation condemns the harassment of Soltan Achilova and her daughter by government authorities at Ashgabat airport and calls for Turkmen authorities to stop their reprisals against journalists for their human rights work.

In the early hours of November 18th, 2023, Mrs. Soltan Achilova and her daughter were stopped by Turkmen government officials from boarding their flight for Switzerland. A customs official took their passports, wet them with a damp rag and declared the passports to be ruined, effectively obstructing Soltan from traveling to Geneva where she would feature as a keynote speaker at the University of Geneva’s Human Rights Week 2023.

This act of harassment and denial of freedom of movement is particularly reprehensible in that it comes only a few days after Turkmenistan’s 4th Universal Periodic Review, during which high-level government representatives expressed their “support for …the promotion and protection of fundamental freedoms and human rights“, giving multiple examples of their progress in terms of respect for freedom of expression.

Soltan Achilova believes she was not allowed to leave the country because of the authorities’ fear that negative information might be heard during the Human Rights week in Geneva. Yet, the obstruction from travel of an internationally recognized human rights defender is more striking evidence of the lack of freedoms in the country and the bad faith with which the Turkmenistan government engages with the Human Rights Council.  

Turkmenistan is one of the most repressive and isolated countries in the world, ranking 176th out of 180 countries in terms of press freedom and working conditions for journalists. Soltan has been reporting about her country for more than a decade. Her pictures of daily life are one of the few sources of documentation of human rights violations occurring in this most secretive nation. In 2021, Soltan was recognized by the Martin Ennals Award for her documentation of land grabs and forced evictions of ordinary citizens in Ashgabat.

Soltan has not been allowed to travel freely outside of her country on several occasions. She is under constant surveillance by Turkmen authorities and has suffered numerous incidents of harassment, intimidation, and threats. Despite the challenges, Soltan persists in her human rights work, regularly sending information and pictures  outside of the country so that government authorities are held to account.

We renew calls for Turkmenistan to fully implement their human rights obligations, including, inter alia, allowing human rights defenders and journalists to conduct their work peacefully. We invite Member States accompanying the 4th Universal Periodic Review of Turkmenistan to strongly sanction the silencing of Soltan Achilova and other Turkmen journalists.

For more on Soltan: https://youtu.be/7xkSvMXaZUU?si=JhWOrMxs4yQQ2wz8

Soltan Achilova MEA2021 denied travel to Geneva Human Rights Week

https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/11/21/turkmenistan-journalist-prevented-travelling-abroad

https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/en/statement-report/turkmenistan-whrd-soltan-achilova-denied-travel-geneva-human-rights-week

https://www.rferl.org/a/turkmenistan-achilova-stopped-flying-europe/32692666.html

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Turkmenistan through the eyes of photojournalist Soltan Achilova, master class 21 November

November 14, 2023
Turkmenistan through the eyes of photojournalist Soltan Achilova
Join us for a Master Class on Turkemnistan at UNIGE Human Rights Week, Tuesday Nov. 21 @12h30-14h !

The World Press Freedom Index ranked Turkmenistan one of the five most repressive regimes globally in 2023.
Martin Ennals Award Finalist Soltan Achilova is a 74 years-old photojournalist who captures the lives of ordinary people in Turkmenistan with her camera. Soltan’s pictures describing food insecurity, forced and illegal evictions, lack of adequate healthcare and the discrimination faced by people with disabilities, are an invaluable source of information on human rights violations endured by the people of Turkmenistan. In collaboration with the University of Geneva Human Rights Week this event will explore how independent journalism can push back on the denial of freedom of expression in the toughest authoritarian contexts.


Free Entry
Tuesday Nov. 21, 2023
12h30-14h
Unimail Salle MS150

see also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2021/02/23/soltan-achilova-has-issued-a-rare-rebuke-of-the-turkmen-president-on-youtube/

https://mailchi.mp/martinennalsaward.org/invitation-turkmenistan-master-class-unige-9415682?e=2898c3ec1a

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Euronews on Achilova and the MEA was banned by Turkmenistan

March 10, 2021

It now transpired that Turkmenistan on March 8 stopped broadcasting the news TV channel Euronews, which showed the footage about the 2021 Martin Ennals Award Ceremony for Human Rights Defenders and one of its finalist, the Turkmen journalist Soltan Achilova, independent foreign-based news website Chronicles of Turkmenistan reported.

The 2021 Award Ceremony of the most prestigious award for human rights defenders was held in an online format on 11 February.

As Vienna-based Chronicles of Turkmenistan has reported, l This year’s finalists included Soltan Achilova, a 72-year-old journalist and activist who has reported on state repression in Turkmenistan in the face of relentless intimidation. Her story was well told in a recent profile by AFP news agency. [see also; https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2021/02/23/soltan-achilova-has-issued-a-rare-rebuke-of-the-turkmen-president-on-youtube/]

Akhal-Teke is a weekly Eurasianet column compiling news and analysis from Turkmenistan. It added on 9 March: Euronews is about as anodyne a news channel as one could hope to find. So much so that the Turkmen Foreign Ministry in January 2020 hosted the channel’s chief business development officer, Roland Nikolaou, for talks on future cooperation. That makes the inclusion of Euronews among the ranks of undesirables all the more remarkable. 

Turkmenistan has the backup option of Mir 24, a Euronews clone based out of Moscow and focused on news from Commonwealth of Independent States members. Turkmenistan is an associate member of the post-Soviet bloc. The station began broadcasting inside the country in December 2020, following a cooperation deal signed with the Turkmen state broadcaster a month earlier. 

Mir 24 also produces content, of the most unimaginably inoffensive kind, from inside the country. Recent reports have included one on a highly chaste beauty contest for female students, several touching upon celebrations for International Women’s Day and a piece about the creation of a national annual holiday devoted to the Alabai dog breed. 

Blocking Euronews is of little import in the larger scheme of things. As RFE/RL wrote on March 7, police are adopting invigorated measures to make sure that smartphone owners are not using VPN services to circumvent censorship. The broadcaster said that authorities in the city of Mary are stopping people in the street for spot inspections of their phones.  

The cause of this alarm is the continued seepage of news belying the absurd government insistence that the country has experienced no cases of COVID-19.

https://www.timesca.com/index.php/news/23543-turkmenistan-stops-broadcasting-euronews-channel-after-tv-footage-about-turkmen-journalist

https://eurasianet.org/turkmenistan-a-ban-on-all-news-ye-who-enter-here

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2021 edition of Geneva film festival kicks off in virtual format

March 6, 2021
The FIFDH kicks off in virtual format for its 19th edition
  • Wolfgang Spindler  reported on 0 March 2021 that the 19th edition of the International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights in Geneva has gone virtual. Usually every year some 40 000 visitors attend to watch and discuss films that focus on human rights violations. Around 300 filmmakers, human rights defenders and politicians from 25 countries across the globe used to be invited. But, this year, the festival has been forced to change and adapt to the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants are now encouraged to click on ‘likes‘ instead of applauding, as physical presence is not possible.

Isabelle Gattiker is the FIFDH Festival Director. She said that the festival had to reinvent itself. They are proposing videos on demand, that she describes as not being able to replace real cinema theatres. But they have tried “to work on public participation despite the digital format”. Online audiences can comment and ask questions during the showings every evening from 8 pm (CET) from anywhere on the planet.

For the first time ever there will also be a public award, where the viewers can give a mark to the films they’ve watched. At the end of the festival, the film with the highest rating from the official selection will be awarded this prize.

Soltan Achilova This 19th edition is dedicated to Turkmenistan Photojournalist, Soltan Achilova. The 71-year-old was amongst this year’s finalists for the “Martin Ennals Award“, an annual prize known as “the Nobel prize for human rights defenders. See: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2021/02/23/soltan-achilova-has-issued-a-rare-rebuke-of-the-turkmen-president-on-youtube/

https://www.euronews.com/2021/03/05/the-fifdh-kicks-off-in-virtual-format-for-its-19th-edition

https://fifdh.org/en/program-2021

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Soltan Achilova has issued a rare rebuke of the Turkmen President – On YouTube

February 23, 2021
Turkmen journalist Soltan Achilova (file photo)
Turkmen journalist Soltan Achilova (file photo)

On 19 February 2021 RFE/RL reported that 71-year-old Turkmen journalist Soltan Achilova has issued a rare rebuke of the Central Asian nation’s authoritarian President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, criticizing him and his government in a video posted on YouTube for failing to provide proper heating and water supply to Ashgabat residents during winter.

In the video statement that appeared on YouTube late on February 18, Achilova, who has previously worked as a reporter for RFE/RL’s Turkmen Service, said she will no longer call Berdymukhammedov “respected” because “millions of Turkmen had stopped respecting you long ago.”

Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov (file photo)
Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov (file photo)

Such an act of public dissent is a rare occurrence in Turkmenistan, where Berdymukhammedov has run the former Soviet republic with an iron fist since 2006, becoming the center of an elaborate personality cult

Last month, Achilova was named as one of three finalists for the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders for her reports from Turkmenistan, one of the most repressive countries in the world. SEE ALSO: Turkmen Journalist Achilova Among Finalists For Top Human Rights Prize [https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2021/01/18/%e2%80%8b%e2%80%8bmartin-ennals-award-finalists-2021-announced/]. See also: https://www.martinennalsaward.org/hrd/soltan-achilova/#film

Achilova also criticized Berdymukhammedov and his government for what she called a “failure to provide” ordinary people with decent food at acceptable prices, adding that “miserable pensions and salaries in the country” do not provide people with the means to shop for regular items at local markets. Achilova added that the heating system in her apartment had been switched off several times in recent days, which she called an intentional warning over her journalistic activities.

“Our fellow Turkmen citizens working in foreign countries have staged several protests recently demanding your resignation. We join those protests and demand your resignation as well because you are incapable of carrying out your duties. We are suffering and you do not even care about it. All you are capable of is ruining our homes and causing our people to suffer,” Achilova said.

Based in Ashgabat, Achilova is currently a contributor to the Vienna-based independent news website Khronika Turkmenistana (Chronicles of Turkmenistan), which focuses on news and developments in Turkmenistan.
Turkmen authorities, who don’t tolerate an independent press, have targeted Achilova in the past for her work as a journalist. SEE ALSO: RFE/RL Correspondent Roughed Up — Again — In Turkmenistan

https://www.rferl.org/a/turkmenistan-journalist-achilova-rare-public-rebuke-president-berdymukhammedov/31111278.html

https://www.timesca.com/index.php/news/23482-turkmenistan-journalist-posts-rare-public-rebuke-of-president-on-youtube

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Reminder: in a few hours starts the Martin Ennals Award ceremony 2021

February 11, 2021

Nothing can stop us from celebrating human rights defenders!

On-line February 11, 2021 at 18h (UTC+1): Celebration of the 2021 Martin Ennals Award Finalists:

Soltan Achilova, Republic of Turkmenistan

Loujain AlHathloul, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (who was just released from jail https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2021/02/09/will-loujain-al-hathloul-be-released-on-thursday-11-february/]

Yu Wensheng, People’s Republic of China

See also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2021/01/18/%e2%80%8b%e2%80%8bmartin-ennals-award-finalists-2021-announced/

With cartoons by Patrick Chappatte, music by Gaspard Sommer and choreography by the Ballet Junior of Genève. An evening hosted by the journalist Catherine Sommer – in French and English – and broadcast on https://www.martinennalsaward.org/

2021 Edition


    

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​​Martin Ennals Award Finalists 2021 announced

January 18, 2021

Today 18 January 2021, the Martin Ennals Foundation announced that three outstanding human rights defenders based in authoritarian states are nominated for the 2021 Martin Ennals Award.

In isolated Turkmenistan, Soltan Achilova documents human rights violations and abuses through photojournalism.

Imprisoned in Saudi Arabia, Loujain AlHathloul is a leading advocate for gender equality and women’s rights.

A lawyer, Yu Wensheng defended human rights cases and activists before his conviction and imprisonment in China.

The Finalists distinguish themselves by their bravery and deep commitment to the issues they defend, despite the many attempts to silence them by respective governmental authorities. The 2021 Martin Ennals Award Ceremony will celebrate their courage on 11 February during an online ceremony hosted jointly with the City of Geneva which, as part of its commitment to human rights, has for many years supported the Award. “Every year thousands of human rights defenders are persecuted, harassed, imprisoned, even killed. The Martin Ennals Foundation is honored to celebrate the 2021 Finalists, who have done so much for others and whose stories of adversity are emblematic of the precarity faced by the human rights movement today”, says Isabel de Sola, Director of the Martin Ennals Foundation.

For more on this and similar awards, see: https://www.trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/award/043F9D13-640A-412C-90E8-99952CA56DCE

“Authoritarian states tend to believe that by jailing or censoring human rights defenders, the world will forget about them. During the COVID-pandemic, it seemed like lockdowns would successfully keep people from speaking out. This year’s Finalists are a testament to the fact that nothing could be further from the truth”, says Hans Thoolen, Chair of the Jury.

  • In Turkmenistan, one of the world’s most isolated countries, freedom of speech is inexistent and independent journalists work at their own peril. Soltan Achilova (71), a photojournalist, documents the human rights abuses and social issues affecting Turkmen people in their daily lives. Despite the repressive environment and personal hardships, she is one of the very few reporters in the country daring to sign independent articles.
  • In Saudi Arabia, women still face several forms of gender discrimination, so much so, that the Kingdom ranks in the bottom 10 places according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2020. Loujain AlHathloul (31) was one of the leading figures of the Women to drive movement and advocated for the end of the male guardianship system. She was imprisoned in 2018 on charges related to national security together with several other women activists. Tortured, denied medical care, and subjected to solitary confinement, Loujain was sentenced to 5 years and 8 months in prison on 28 December 2020. [see: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/tag/loujain-al-hathloul/]
  • In China, more than 300 human rights activists and lawyers disappeared or were arrested in 2015 during the so called 709 Crackdown. A successful business lawyer, Yu Wensheng (54) gave up his career to defend one of these detained lawyers, before being arrested himself. Detained for almost three years now, Yu Wensheng’s right hand was crushed in jail and his health is failing. [see also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2019/06/26/lawyers-key-to-the-rule-of-law-even-china-agrees-but-only-lip-service/]

Online Award Ceremony on 11 February 2021

The 2021 Martin Ennals Award will be given to the three Finalists on 11 February 2021 at an online ceremony co-hosted by the City of Geneva (Switzerland), a long-standing supporter of the Award. “The City of Geneva reaffirms its support to human rights, especially during these times of crisis and upheaval. Human rights are the foundation of our society, not even the pandemic will stop us from celebrating brave persons who have sacrificed so much”, says Member of the executive Alfonso Gomez.

For more information:

Chloé Bitton
Communications Manager
Martin Ennals Foundation
cbitton@martinennalsaward.org
media@martinennalsaward.org
Office: +41.22.809.49.25
Mobile: +41.78.734.68.79

Media focal point for Loujain AlHathloul
Uma Mishra-Newberry
FreeLoujain@gmail.com  
https://www.loujainalhathloul.org
+41.78.335.25.40 (on signal)

Press release

Press release (English)

Press release (French)

Press release (Chinese)

Press release (Russian)

Press release (Arabic)

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