NON-CITIZENS

Ãoíaîãað, Turkmenistan
Gundogar
May 23 2006

Report by Turkmen Initiative for Human Rights on the situation of
granting Turkmenistan citizenship to national minorities and refugees.

On 5 August 2005 Turkmen mass media reported that according to a
decree and resolution signed by the President, Turkmenistan granted
citizenship to 13245 persons and residence permits to 3053 individuals.

Among these are ethnic Turkmens who used to live in Tajikistan and
then escaped from the civil war in this state to their historical
Motherland as well as residents of several villages located on the
Turkmen-Uzbek border which as a result of the demarcation of boundary
remained on Turkmen territory.

This mass and, unfortunately, one-off act was timed to coincide with
the 67th Session of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial
Discrimination held in Geneva. At this session, a report on the
situation of national minorities prepared by Turkmenistan’s government
was presented for the first time ever. It was apparently decided to
make up for the obvious weakness of this report by issuing the decree
and by the presence of Foreign Minister R.Meredov at the UN Session.

In practice, Turkmen authorities were concerned not by the fate of
these more than 16 thousand persons who were for years second-rate
citizens in the country and not by the future of the other thousands
who up until now have failed to obtain either citizenship or a
residence permit in Turkmenistan. While Turkmen mass media presented
this move as an act of great humanity, the government was only
concerned by its image which needed to be improved before the UN
Committee’s session.

***

The number of those who fail to obtain Turkmen citizenship is rather
high. In newsletter ¹13 of 7.04.2004 the TI reported about Armenian
refugees who since the 1988-1989 Karabakh conflict have been residing
in the country and have tried to acquire Turkmen citizenship. Yet,
neither before 5 August 2005 not later has any managed to obtain
citizenship. Many Armenians were forced to leave the inhospitable
country for the United States, Russia and other countries.

There are also cases of those who were born and grew up in Turkmenistan
and left the country for family or other reasons. After the break-up
of the Soviet Union they returned to Turkmenistan but despite official
inquiries to the authorities, they failed to receive citizenship of
the country which they considered their homeland.

There is another group of residents whose situation is also miserable:
these are the women from the neighboring Uzbek regions married
to ethnic Uzbeks residing in the Dashoguz and Lebap velayats of
Turkmenistan.

In the time of the formation of the USSR the borders between the
republics were determined artificially without considering the history
of the region. As a result, many Uzbek settlements were included in
the Turkmen Soviet Republic, whereas Turkmen villages found themselves
on the territory of the Uzbek Soviet Republic.

However, in practice both belonged to one country and the boundaries
between them were insignificant. There were no obstacles to creating
families, i.e. Uzbek girls married men from Turkmenistan and vice
versa.

The situation altered after 1993 when such marriages were denied
registration. Yet, Turkmen-Uzbek families continued to be created:
people got married and children were born as there was hope that
at some point the state would take care of their legal status and
legitimize their marital relations.

There are some families which have registered their marriages by 1994
and have marriage certificates. Yet, up until now the wives cannot
obtain Turkmen citizenship. All their attempts to receive Turkmen
passports even with the help of bribes were unsuccessful.

One of these women from the Bereket peasant association named Sanovar
spent a total of 3 million manats in order to legalize her staying
in Turkmenistan. However, she did not succeed and received no passport.

“We have repeatedly addressed all authorities, and have even gone to
Ashgabat regarding this issue but we have not succeeded”, – says a
resident of the village located at the border. – “Starting from 2000
our daughter-in-law has never visited her parents in Uzbekistan. She
has an old Soviet passport and since she could not receive a new one
she can only meet up with her relatives if they travel from Uzbekistan
to her. Yet, it is difficult to maintain the ties, so I wish she would
be permitted to travel with her old passport but she is not allowed”.

The Law “On citizenship” in Turkmenistan allows for the acquisition of
citizenship, in particular Article 16 (Conditions for acceptance into
the citizenship of Turkmenistan) states: An individual may be given
citizenship of Turkmenistan upon request if he: 1. makes a commitment
to obey and respect the Constitution and laws of Turkmenistan; 2. knows
the state language of Turkmenistan sufficiently well to communicate;
3. has had permanent residence on the territory of Turkmenistan for
the past seven years.

In other words, there are no legal grounds for denying citizenship to
this group of people. Uzbek and Turkmen languages are very similar,
so these women are fluent in Turkmen. Most of them have lived in
Turkmenistan for over 10 years while the Law requires only seven. It
should be added that the aforementioned Armenian refugees have been
living in Turkmenistan for 17-18 years.

However, instead of legalizing the stay of these individuals in the
country, the law enforcement agencies are more concerned about how
to get rid of them. Cases of deportation of women with children have
become common practice in the villages on the border. This means
that families are divided, wives and small children without Turkmen
documents have to leave for Uzbekistan while the husbands (sometimes
with older kids) have to remain in Turkmenistan.

The ethnic Uzbeks residing in the Niyazov’s etrap of the Dashoguz
velayat have been most affected by this problem. Representatives
of the local khyakimlik accompanied by policemen came to the houses
where the women without Turkmen citizenship lived and ordered them
the leave Turkmenistan.

“My relative – a woman with three kids – has to leave her home and
her husband as she has neither a passport nor registration documents.

Another woman from Kunjaurgench with four kids also expects that she
will be deported. She is from Manguit (a village in Uzbekistan)”, –
says a woman from the Niyazov village.

Nelufar N., a resident of Dashoguz says: “My cousin married a girl
from Urguench in 1994. She was deported with her baby boy as the
latter had no birth certificate. Four older kids managed to stay with
their father at home. The sister-in-law together with other women and
children who were in the same situation were brought to the border,
taken to the neutral zone and left there: nobody cared where they
went to from there. It was a real blow for our entire family!”.

Here is a story of an Uzbek woman named Baldjan: “In 2000 our relatives
decided to take a bride in neighboring Uzbekistan. I warned my aunt
about the problems they might face since marriages with foreigners
are not allowed to be registered and that the bride would not obtain
citizenship, so they would have to live together illegally. However, my
aunt did no listen to me; she said that her contacts in the khyakimlik
would help to arrange citizenship for the daughter-in-law and for
her to receive a Turkmen passport. Yet, nothing worked and Zuleikha
(daughter-in-law) has recently been deported to Uzbekistan together
with her small kids who also had no documents. The family is in shock,
the aunt was taken ill and had an apoplectic attack, her son took to
the bottle…”.

Below is another sad story of a man who went to see the khyakim of
the Dashoguz velayat on 24 February 2006: “There were many people in
the reception room waiting for appointments and among them was a young
Uzbek woman. I got talking to her and she complained that for 11 days
already she had roughed it without proper food and accommodation. She
came here 15 years ago from Uzbekistan and got married in the Takhta
village. However, her husband and she led a very unhappy life and
she chose to leave for Ashgabat to earn money.

She found a job in a summer house in the Chongaly village in the
outskirts of Ashgabat. Some days ago the police organized a round-up
to find illegal residents in the cottage village. 21 persons were
deported to Dashoguz by train as they were residing and working in
Ashgabat illegally. The woman was not even allowed to take her kids –
the two girls aged 5 and 2 years old – who were also living with her
in the summer house. During these 11 days she went to all authorities
in Dashoguz in order to receive a permit which would allow her to
travel to Ashgabat to pick up her children (in Turkmenistan it is
not possible to travel from one velayat to another without documents).

Finally, she came to see the khyakim with the request to issue her a
temporary document. Her last name is Rakhimbayeva. According to her,
this was the first time in 15 years that she had been caught. If she
receives travel documents, she will immediately go to her children
and then they will probably leave Turkmenistan. But where should they
go and to whom?”.

The state service of Turkmenistan on registration of foreign citizens
is also actively involved in identifying such “illegal aliens” and
does this with particular cynicism and sophistication.

In the peasant association “Gulistan” (former Kirov’s kolkhoz) of the
Dashoguz velayat the officers of the service on registration of foreign
citizens announced that those who up until now held no Turkmen national
passport should come and get registered, then the passport would be
issued. Families who had previously hidden the fact that their wives
and daughters-in-law held no Turkmen citizenship were overjoyed and
sent them to register their status. As a result, 28 women without
Turkmen citizenship were deported “home” from Turkmenistan. The
children who had no birth certificates left their true homeland
together with their mothers. This incident happened in April 2006.

***

When last summer the authorities announced the granting of citizenship
and passports to several thousands of people it gave hope to
the women residing in the Dashoguz velayat who had no identity
documents. However, the happiness did not last for long: the number of
deported women and children who hold no Turkmen citizenship continues
to rise.

Despite all the assurances made by Foreign Minister R.Meredov
to the members of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial
Discrimination about the absence of problems faced by national
minorities in Turkmenistan, the practice shows the opposite.

The Turkmen authorities force the law obedient people – women who
give birth to and raise their children, grow and harvest cotton,
do the housework there- to become illegal aliens who have to conceal
their citizenship and bribe policemen not to break up their families
by deporting the women to nowhere.

At the Session of the UN Committee of the Rights of the Child another
official report of Turkmenistan will shortly be presented. Apparently
this report will also state that there are no problems regarding the
rights of children. However, as practice shows, the reports of the
authorities and the real situation are two different things.

Hopefully, the members of the UN Committee will treat the issue of
the rights of children being deported from their home country together
with their mothers with respect.

It should be also recalled to Minister R.Meredov that the questions
posed by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination
last August remain unanswered by the Turkmen authorities.

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