New evidence has surfaced that Turkmen blogger Farkhad Meimankuliev was deported to Turkmenistan and convicted.
Additional details about the case of blogger Farhad Meymankuliev, better known as Durdyev, who was detained in Turkey on May 19, 2023, have become known.
On August 2, Farhad's fellow villager from the Garashsyzlyk (formerly Deinau) district of the Lebap province told human rights activists that the blogger had been sentenced to 22 years in prison. The blogger's relatives did not have exact information about where, when and how he was tried, what charges were incriminated. Another source reports an 18-year sentence.
Two days earlier, we received a voice message from a migrant who saw Meimankuliev in the Tuzla deportation center in May: “The head of the gendarmerie of the deportation center named Fakhri asked us, Turkmens, if we knew him. He said that the blogger was put on the Interpol wanted list. On May 20, four men of large build, dressed in civilian suits, came for Farhad and took away the weeping Farhad. Fakhri told us that today is a non-working day, the guy does not have a lawyer, otherwise he would have a chance to avoid deportation. By the way, Farhad was not even allowed to take personal items from the center’s storage, including his personal computer.”
This story confirms the information of a lawyer hired by human rights activists, according to which the database of the Tuzla deportation center regarding Farhat indicates that since December 2018 he was in Turkey illegally and was deported on May 20, 2023, that the Ç - 137 code provided for by Turkish law were applied to him ("foreigners taken into custody with the aim of deportation from the country") and Ç - 152 ("ban on entry into Turkey" from May 2023).
The Turkish Migration Authority has not yet responded to a request about Farhad's fate.
Meanwhile, from the moment the blogger was detained, information has been spreading among Turkmen migrants that he is allegedly still in Turkey and that he has some kind of “international protection”. What protection is in question, where and in what status the blogger is kept is not reported. There is still no information about who those mysterious “international lawyers” allegedly hired by his compatriot “Yunus” immediately after the blogger was detained. It is not clear why there is still no contact with Farhad, at least through these lawyers?
There are suspicions that someone is deliberately hiding the truth.
Turkmen Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights
