44 USCIRF | ANNUAL REPORT 2023

USCIRF–RECOMMENDED FOR COUNTRIES OF PARTICULAR CONCERN (CPC)

TURKMENISTAN

I

n 2022, religious freedom conditions in Turkmenistan remained 

poor. The government controls all aspects of religious life and 

expression, dictating and surveilling religious practice and 

punishing nonconformity through administrative harassment, 

imprisonment, and torture. 

The government of Turkmenistan is an extremely authoritarian 

regime with an abysmal record on human rights and freedom of the 

press. As a result, the country is largely closed off from the rest of 

the world, making it difficult for accurate information to flow into 

or out of its borders. The government’s tight hold on society and 

information also makes it difficult to document the full scope of 

the ongoing religious freedom violations, which are certainly more 

extensive than the limited number of reports indicate. In addition to 

the closed-off nature of the country, those who can get information 

out often do so at great risk to their lives and liberty. Turkmenistan’s 

diaspora community and citizens in exile are often unwilling to share 

information about the government’s religious freedom violations 

for fear of retaliation against them or their families. Nevertheless, 

the available information continues to present a bleak picture. 

During the year, the government continued to treat all independent religious activity with suspicion, maintaining a large 

surveillance apparatus that monitors believers at home and abroad. 

Turkmen law requires religious groups to register under intrusive 

criteria, strictly controls registered groups’ activities, and punishes 

religious activities by unregistered groups, which are banned. 

Persons accused of criminal religious offenses are often tried 

in closed-regime courts where sentences remain secret. Prisoners 

of conscience are often disappeared in the state’s prison system 

and presumed to be held without contact with the outside world. 

The authorities hold many religious prisoners at the notorious 

Ovadan-Depe Prison, located in the remote desert 50 miles north 

of the capital city of Ashgabat. Ovadan-Depe was built to house 

KEY FINDINGS

high-level political dissidents and enemies of the state, and its 

prisoners routinely die from harsh conditions that include torture 

and starvation. In October, five Muslims who are serving 12-year 

prison sentences for meeting to study the writings of Turkish 

Muslim theologian Said Nursi were transferred to a strict-regime 

labor camp.

Turkmenistan maintains its compulsory two-year military service requirement, described as a “sacred duty” in Turkmenistan’s 

constitution, and does not offer alternative civilian service for conscientious objectors. As USCIRF’s past reporting shows, Jehovah’s 

Witnesses have been imprisoned under Turkmenistan’s criminal 

code for conscientious objection. Although all those imprisoned 

were granted amnesty in 2021, the government conscription office 

continued to summon Jehovah’s Witnesses for compulsory military service in 2022. In March, the United Nations Human Rights 

Committee found that Turkmenistan violated Articles 9(1) and 

18(1) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights by 

imprisoning a Jehovah’s Witness for his conscientious objection to 

compulsory military service.

Online activity remained limited by blocked internet access 

and extremely slow network speeds. In January, then President 

Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow instructed the head of the Ministry 

for State Security to further increase state control of the internet and 

restrict public access to internet sources that “threaten the constitutional order.” In March, then President Berdimuhamedow ostensibly 

handed government leadership over to his son Serdar in managed 

“elections” while giving himself the position of speaker of the Senate. This transition did not bring any improvements in conditions for 

human rights and individual freedoms; if anything, they worsened. 

Throughout the year, Gurbanguly remained active in government 

leadership, and in January 2023 he was appointed “national leader,” 

making clear he still controlled the Turkmen government.

RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE U.S. GOVERNMENT

	■ Redesignate Turkmenistan as a “country 

of particular concern,” or CPC, for engaging in systematic, ongoing, and egregious 

violations of religious freedom, as defined 

by the International Religious Freedom 

Act (IRFA), and lift the waiver releasing 

the administration from taking otherwise 

legislatively mandated action as a result of 

the designation;

	■ Take presidential action to limit security 

assistance to Turkmenistan under IRFA 

Section 405(a)(22) to hold the government of Turkmenistan accountable for its 

particularly severe violations of religious 

freedom;

	■ Impose targeted sanctions on Turkmenistan government agencies and 

officials responsible for severe violations 

of religious freedom by freezing those 

individuals’ assets and/or barring their 

entry into the United States under human 

rights related financial and visa authorities, citing specific religious freedom 

violations; and

	■ Urge the government of Turkmenistan to 

provide an acceptable civilian alternative 

to military service. 

KEY USCIRF RESOURCES & ACTIVITIES

■ Podcast: Turkmenistan’s Tight Grip on Religious Freedom
USCIRF–RECOMMENDED FOR COUNTRIES OF PARTICULAR CONCERN (CPC) 45

TURKMENISTAN

Background

Turkmenistan is a highly repressive country ruled since 2007 by Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow, who enforces a cult of personality that 

proliferates his image in golden monuments and fawning official 

coverage. During 2022, the year his son Serdar nominally took over 

as the country’s president, space for civil society continued to shrink, 

most directly affecting women and internet users. Women were 

banned from sitting in the front seat of cars and were required to 

adhere to strict dress codes, though enforcement did weaken during 

the year. Internet access and government censorship of information 

continued to worsen with the government’s increased curtailing of 

VPNs and incredibly slow broadband, earning Turkmenistan’s mobile 

and fixed broadband speeds a ranking of 177th out of 179 countries 

as of January 2023. 

Turkmenistan holds the fourth-largest natural gas reserves in the 

world, which is vital to its geopolitical relations with Russia, China, Iran, 

and potentially Europe. Following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, 

European Union countries have sought new sources of natural gas to 

decrease their dependence on Russia, including from Turkmenistan.

The majority of the population is Sunni Muslim, at 89 percent, 

while approximately nine percent of the population is Eastern Orthodox, typically Russian Orthodox or Armenian Apostolic. There are 

small communities of Shi’a Muslims, Roman Catholics, Protestant 

Christians, and Baha’is. 

Legal Framework for Controlling Religious Activity

Although Turkmenistan’s 2016 religion law asserts that the country is a 

secular state with religious freedom, it requires all religious activity to 

be registered with the state under intrusive criteria, mandates that the 

government be informed of all foreign financial support, bans private 

religious education and worship, and prohibits the public wearing 

of religious garb except by clerics. The State Commission on Religious Organizations and Expert Evaluation of Religious Information 

Resources (SCROEERIR) oversees all religious activity, including registrations, the appointment of religious leaders, the building of houses 

of worship, and the import and publication of religious literature. 

Registration of Religious Organizations 

Turkmen law requires all religious organizations to register with the 

Ministry of Justice (MOJ) by sending applications to SCROEERIR to 

operate legally. The process is burdensome and designed to allow 

for significant government interference in the functioning of religious organizations. The MOJ will register an organization only if 

SCROEERIR has endorsed the application and the organization’s goals 

or activities do not “contradict Turkmenistan’s constitution,” giving 

the government latitude to arbitrarily deny registration applications. 

SCROEERIR must approve all individuals appointed as leaders of religious organizations, each of whom under law must have “appropriate 

religious education.” In addition, the process requires religious organizations to provide detailed information about founding members, 

including names, addresses, and birth dates. Recognized communities 

must reregister every three years.

Even if successfully registered, religious organizations enjoy little 

legal protection. If a court finds that a religious organization is violating Turkmenistan’s constitution, it may suspend the group’s activities. 

The law further provides that MOJ officials may attend any religious 

event held by a registered organization and question its leaders about 

the organization’s activities. Registered organizations may import 

religious literature only with SCROEERIR approval. 

Unregistered religious organizations are forbidden from conducting religious activities, producing or disseminating religious 

materials, proselytizing, and gathering for religious services, even in 

private residences. Reports indicate that registering churches is very 

difficult and that Turkmenistan’s Christian minority has been largely 

driven underground. Although not technically banned, Jehovah’s 

Witnesses have not been granted registration and are therefore 

unable to operate legally. Religious activity is forbidden in prisons 

and in the military.

Key U.S. Policy

The United States engaged with the government of Turkmenistan 

on a variety of issues such as border and regional security programs, 

efforts to mitigate climate change, trade, and educational and cultural 

exchanges; U.S. foreign assistance served to reinforce these objectives. Turkmenistan also enjoys most-favored-nation trading status. 

In September, the commander of the Montana National Guard 

traveled to Turkmenistan for talks on reviving the state partnership 

program facilitating collaborative military trainings between the 

United States and Turkmenistan. In November, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Donald Lu traveled

to Turkmenistan to discuss cooperation on a wide range of bilateral 

and regional issues.

On November 30, the U.S. Department of State redesignated 

Turkmenistan as a CPC under IRFA but kept in place a waiver of 

the sanctions that should accompany the designation based on the 

“important national interest of the United States,” as it has done since 

2014. The waiver effectively neutralizes the consequences of Turkmenistan’s CPC designation, removes any incentive for the government to 

reform its brutal policies, and lends credence to the regime’s claims 

that security concerns warrant its harsh repression of religious freedom.