My small camera, attached to a side window, captured a police officer in a car. He was staring at the lens and frantically talking on his phone. Maybe he was just overtaking my car, but such encounters fuel fear among citizens and enforce obedience.

For journalists, Turkmenistan is a virtual black hole. Though the constitution of the country of 5.2 million guarantees freedom of expression, in practice it is among the most repressive media environments in the world. Reporters Without Borders, a press freedom group, ranks Turkmenistan 178th out of 180 countries on its annual press freedom index. Only North Korea and Eritrea score lower.

«If you do not fulfill the requirements of the administration, then you do not just get fired, the administration will also make your life miserable. They will not leave you alone, they will start nitpicking at your work, will be watching your every move, and if you make a simple mistake at some point, it will be used as grounds for termination. Neither the union, nor the prosecutor or the judge will defend you. Nobody wants any trouble, therefore we all like sheep in the flock, with bowed heads, quietly do what we are told»

Head of Department of Corrections Chary Geldyev urged Mansur Mingelov to accept a change to a lighter sentence («you will be freed during the upcoming amnesty»), but after Mingelov refused, Geldyev agreed to review the case but requested that information about Mingelov not be put on the Internet in the future. The hunger strike ended.

A passenger on a Turkish Airlines (THY) plane flying to the Turkmenistan capital Ashkhabad from Istanbul caused panic after shouting that he had a bomb attached to his body, showing a lump concealed under his clothes that later turned out to be a liquor bottle.

Why, when addressing the people—not the state—of Turkmenistan, does the State Department fail to mention democracy, democratization, political or economic reforms, or human rights, concepts it professes to promote? It would be disturbing, however, to think that the omission might reflect a lack of urgency about democracy and human rights from the people responsible for Secretary Kerry’s statement.

On 22 October eight of Turkmenistan’s nine known imprisoned prisoners of conscience jailed for exercising freedom of religion or belief were released under presidential amnesty, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. All were being held in a harsh labour camp in eastern Turkmenistan. Six were conscientious objectors to military service and two had been imprisoned on fabricated charges to punish them for exercising their freedom of religion or belief.

By forcing citizens to harvest cotton, Turkmen officials on various levels are violating the International Labor Organization’s Convention №105 on the abolition of forced labor and Convention №29 on forced and compulsory labor. Furthermore, with this practice the government of Turkmenistan is violating its own Labor code, section 8 of which defines forced labor as «any labor one is forced to do against his will under the threat of some form of punishment, to which one did not agree to voluntarily».

Bibi Rahmanova therefore called for the conviction to be overturned. She said she had responded «instinctively» when officers touched her inappropriately when seizing her mobile phone which she had hidden inside her shirt.