TURKMENISTAN: LOCAL IWPR REPORTER MAINTAINS LOW

C O N F I D E N T I A L ASHGABAT 000925 SIPDIS DEPT FOR SCA/CEN; DRL E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/22/2019 TAGS: PHUM PGOV SCUL SOCI TX SUBJECT: TURKMENISTAN: LOCAL IWPR REPORTER MAINTAINS LOW PROFILE Classified By: Charge Richard Miles, Reasons 1.4 (b) and (d) ¶1. (C) On July 22, poloff discussed conditions for independent journalists in Turkmenistan with local Institute for War and Peace Reporting ("IWPR") contributor Svetlana Mamedova. Prior to 1999, Mamedova worked 24 years as a correspondent and editor for State Radio and Television. Her ability to hold government employment ended in 1999 when she participated in a human rights study trip to Sweden. Afterwards, she became a local stringer for various foreign, mostly Russian, publications that have since ceased to source articles in Turkmenistan. Mamedova said she has been writing for IWPR for about three years. She believes the Turkmen authorities are not aware that she is a IWPR contributor. They know her only as a correspondent for a Kazakh publication "Ves Mir" (the Whole World). Since at least 2006, Mamedova has been on a blacklist prohibiting travel aboard. She found out when she was taken off a plane bound for Kazakhstan where she planned to attend a journalism conference. Both the Migration Service and the Ministry of National Security have refused her requests for a letter confirming that she is not allowed to travel abroad. ¶2. (C) Mamedova sends her reports to IWPR via email, a task that she described as having become extremely risky since the Internet service at the Embassy's Information Resource Center stopped operating due to poor service from the Internet service provider. She said she is currently afraid to send articles since her only alternative Internet access is via Internet cafes and she is required to present her internal passport in order to use those computers. Mamedova selects her own topics for reports, with her interest often initiated by reading between the lines of articles published in the state-controlled press. She said the IWPR style is to write factually, but not in an inflammatory manner. Any information in a submission that is not confirmed is edited out by IWPR. For her reports, Mamedova does not conduct interviews. Rather she uses unattributed quotes from acquaintances with first-hand knowledge about an issue. Even then, the meetings are by chance, for instance when she is out walking her dog. ¶3. (C) She noted that the USAID-funded Counterpart International project civil society support center in Ashgabat, due to close this fall, was an important source of support for journalists as well as civil society. The effect of dwindling Internet access is a full "information vacuum." Dial-up internet service often does not work for days and is impossibly slow when it does work, due, Mamedova averred, to the fact that all transmissions are being checked. She cited the experience of an acquaintance who tried to access the fergana.ru information website and was visited by security officials shortly thereafter. As a result of Internet monitoring equipment from China, Mamedova asserted that the Internet access situation is worse now than it was under Niyazov. ¶4. (C) Referring to the 1991 Law on Mass Media, which she said has not been revised, Mamedova noted that its prohibition against criticizing the government is applied even to factual information, creating an impossible situation for journalists to report on negative conditions. She reported that all currently accredited journalists received their accreditation prior to 2000. Almost all of them studied at the Turkmen State University's History Department, 80 percent of whose graduates went on to work for the security police and many hold Russian passports, she asserted. ¶5. (C) COMMENT: Mamedova's situation is illustrative of the ways in which the government keeps a stranglehold on free expression, by restricting means of communication and intimidation. Nothing she said indicated that the situation is likely to improve any time soon. END COMMENT. MILES