Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
06ASHGABAT912
2006-08-25 13:46:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Ashgabat
Cable title:  

YKLYMOVA WHILES AWAY HER YOUTH AS A HOSTAGE OF

Tags:  PGOV PHUM PREL TX 
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VZCZCXRO2232
PP RUEHDBU
DE RUEHAH #0912/01 2371346
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 251346Z AUG 06 ZDK
FM AMEMBASSY ASHGABAT
TO RUEHSD/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 7736
INFO RHEFDIA/DIA WASHINGTON DC//DHO-2/REA/NMJIC-J2// PRIORITY
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC PRIORITY
RUEKJCS/JOINT STAFF WASHINGTON DC//J5/RUE// PRIORITY
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY
RHMFISS/CDR USCENTCOM MACDILL AFB FL PRIORITY
RUCNCIS/CIS COLLECTIVE
RUEHLO/AMEMBASSY LONDON 0391
RUEHVEN/USMISSION USOSCE 1674
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK 0385
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 ASHGABAT 000912 

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR SCA/CEN (PERRY)

E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/25/2016
TAGS: PGOV PHUM PREL TX
SUBJECT: YKLYMOVA WHILES AWAY HER YOUTH AS A HOSTAGE OF
NIYAZOV'S PARANOIA

ASHGABAT 00000912 001.2 OF 003


Classified By: Charge d'Affaires, a.i. Jennifer L. Brush, for reasons 1
.4 (b) and (d)

Summary
-------

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 ASHGABAT 000912

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR SCA/CEN (PERRY)

E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/25/2016
TAGS: PGOV PHUM PREL TX
SUBJECT: YKLYMOVA WHILES AWAY HER YOUTH AS A HOSTAGE OF
NIYAZOV'S PARANOIA

ASHGABAT 00000912 001.2 OF 003


Classified By: Charge d'Affaires, a.i. Jennifer L. Brush, for reasons 1
.4 (b) and (d)

Summary
--------------


1. (SBU) In response to an e-mail from Saparmurat Yklymov,
convicted in absentia in 2002 of conspiring to assassinate
President Niyazov, suggesting that his daughter, political
prisoner Maral Yklymova, is being physically abused by host
country law enforcement, PDOff paid a house visit to Yklymova
on August 24. While the fears of torture proved unfounded,
Yklymova exhibits signs of stress from the psychological
pressure of her four-year forced isolation, and pled for help
in getting out of Turkmenistan. Yklymova urged continued
visits by Emboffs and representatives of other diplomatic
missions, including the OSCE. End Comment.

Fears of Physical Abuse Shadow Psychological Pressure
--------------


2. (C) Yklymova welcomed PDOff anxiously but enthusiastically
on this third visit to the house in eight months; the visit
lasted three hours without any contact by host country
agents. (Note: PDOff's visit was in the morning, whereas
previous visits have been in the afternoon; Yklymova's
minders and interrogators have suggested to her that they
expect PDOff visits in the afternoon. End Note.) Yklymova
reported that her minders were sometimes police and sometimes
KGB agents and that she could not always tell the difference;
in addition, her minders were frequently rotated and refused
to identify themselves.


3. (C) Yklymova greeted PDOff and gave her a letter in which
she begged for help in getting out of Turkmenistan: "The
only thing I know for sure is that what is going on here is
WRONG! It is despicable! There is no way I can be
intimidated or silenced by threats! I am ready to make a
step and if that means to fight for my freedom I will but
only with your help! I can't stand up for myself on my own;
please don't leave me alone in this madness! I am so
desperate (sic) to seek an escape-gate and I ask for a (sic)
political asylum."


4. (C) Yklymova denied that she had been physically abused by

host government agents; to the contrary, she said, they had
shown anxiety that she would hurt herself in order to claim
-- falsely -- to representatives of international
organizations that she had been abused. However, she
confirmed, she had been taken to the local police station for
interrogation at least two to three times per month; police
or KGB agents frequently visited the house to watch her or
prevent her from leaving; and she and her 85-year-old
grandmother were detained for three full days and nights May
16-18. Yklymova stated that the May 16 detention began with
police officers physically restraining her arms behind her
back and forcing her into a police car. Her grandmother was
forced into the car in a similar manner, and the long
detention was physically painful for her grandmother. In
addition, Yklymova said, Maral collapsed during the
detention; her interrogators called an ambulance, which took
Maral to a clinic for treatment. (Note: Maral said she
fainted as a result of a preexisting condition ) painful
periods. She had been unable to obtain medication in
Turkmenistan that she had been using to treat this condition.
End Note.) Both Maral and Nina Yklymova were given food,
water, and bathroom breaks during their detention. During
this detention a female law enforcement official watched the
two.


5. (C) While she has been allowed to buy groceries at the
market, Yklymova reported that she routinely has been
followed and that there has been constant surveillance
outside her house from agents in parked cars. Sometimes she
has seen host country agents watching her through the windows
of the government facility that abuts her house. (Note: The
building is a Mary City Sanitation Department office. End
Note.)


6. (C) Yklymova stated that her condition was better than
expected and suggested that she was sympathetic to her

ASHGABAT 00000912 002.2 OF 003


minders because they were not to blame for her detention and
because they seemed uncomfortable about having to watch her.
Nonetheless, at several other times in the conversation with
PDOff, she said that she was frightened of physical abuse
from government agents ) particularly because there was no
end in sight for her detention. She said that her
interrogators accused her of being a prostitute and a drug
addict during interrogations. The interrogations themselves
have been physically stressful because they last for hours
and require her to record every word and action of her
encounters with visitors and to sign confessions that claim
she went "willingly" to the police station to report these
encounters. (Note: She said that she has refused to sign
these statements. End Note.) She fretted that she might
provoke the host government to imprison her or put her on
trial for such minor offenses as changing money at the local
market or possessing foreign-language books and newspapers;
several of Yklymova's male relatives have been imprisoned.


7. (C) Yklymova expressed fears that she is losing her grip
on sanity and said that her minders tell her that the
surveillance on her house and person is pure imagination.
During one of the detention sessions in mid-July, Yklymova's
interrogators told her that "(PDOff) is coming to visit you."
(Note: PDOff was scheduled to accompany Principal Deputy
Assistant Secretary Steven R. Mann on a visit to Mary on July

15. Post informed MFA in a diplomatic note that Mann was
flying to Mary to visit the American Corner there. End
Note.)

Security Forces Attempt to Hide Yklymova from International
Attention
--------------


8. (C) Yklymova believed that there have been seven attempted
visits by diplomats to her house since PDOff's last visit in
April 2006, and recounted that host country law enforcement
has attempted to conceal her presence or bar entrance to her
house in these cases. Yklymova reported that just seconds
before a vehicle with blue (diplomatic) license plates pulled
up in front of her house in May, security agents forced her
out of her house and into a car and took her to the local
police station for interrogation. Yklymova reported that she
saw a person get out of the vehicle and that police
confronted this person. Yklymova's interrogators later told
her that a man had been detained at the police station on her
account. Yklymova speculated that had she been physically
closer to the vehicle she would have been able to get into
the vehicle, thereby obtaining diplomatic protection. (Note:
Deputy Chief of Mission Chris Bowden of the Embassy of the
United Kingdom confirmed that he and the U.K. Desk Officer
for Turkmenistan had attempted to visit Yklymova in May but
that no one answered the doorbell. End Note.)


9. (SBU) In mid-June Yklymova reported that two large trucks
were stationed at the entrance to her street and string
barriers erected, with a sign indicating that city
authorities were conducting repairs on a gas line. (Note:
Yklymova's house is on a street bordered on one side by
railroad tracks and on the other by an intersection. POLOff
had attempted to visit Yklymova during this period and
confirmed the blockade, which prevented POLOFF from accessing
the house. End Note.)


10. (C) On at least one occasion, police physically held
Yklymova by the arm in her house and barred the door leading
outside into her courtyard. On at least two other occasions,
police have put a large padlock on the outside of her front
gate. On most of the occasions when she has been taken in
for interrogation, Yklymova's grandmother has been left at
the house, and Yklymova urged PDOff to tell other potential
visitors to the house to be persistent in ringing the
doorbell or calling out her grandmother's name in order to
give Yklymova a chance to prove that she is being physically
detained inside her house or that she has been taken to the
police station.

Reluctant and Amateurish Surveillance
--------------


11. (C) At the conclusion of the visit, PDOff left the house

ASHGABAT 00000912 003.2 OF 003


and walked past a white car that had been stationed at the
house since PDOff arrived. PDOff saw a man in his
mid-thirties inside the car pointing a video camera at PDOff,
and when he realized PDOff had seen him, the man immediately
put the camera away and jumped over the seat in the car to
hide. PDOff identified herself and said she had delivered
newspapers to Yklymova; the man immediately jumped back into
the driver's seat, nervously acknowledged PDOff and tried
unsuccessfully to start up the car. Once the car started,
the man drove away. (Comment: PDoff identified herself
because the police had told Yklymova to tell her visitors to
do so, and because the surveillance was so obvious PDOff at
first suspected that the surveillant wished PDOff to see it.
PDOff took care not to appear threatening or combative to the
surveillant. End Comment.)

Comment: A Life Suspended
--------------


12. (C) Yklymova has been under house arrest from the age of
23; as an outgoing and well-educated young woman she is
feeling the pressure of not knowing when she might be able to
travel freely within Turkmenistan or to leave Turkmenistan.
She receives weekly calls from her mother in Sweden but their
conversations are brief and guarded. Her neighbors avoid her
and her relatives in Ashgabat told her in 2003 that they
could not risk the consequences of contacting her. Yklymova
asked PDOff several times not to leave and pleaded with PDOff
to come again. Yklymova appears nervous and depressed,
although physically healthy. Yklymova does not want to leave
her grandmother in Turkmenistan should Yklymova gain the
chance to go abroad, but would accept the opportunity if
offered. End Comment.
BRUSH