09/11/13 WEA-RLC Research & Analysis Report: Religious Repression Carries on Unabated in Turkmenistan

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Turkmenistan has been one of the most repressive countries in the world for over two decades, as key international actors continue to sideline the issue of religious and other freedoms due to their thirst for cheap energy. This Muslim-majority Central Asian nation possesses the world’s fourth largest reserves of natural gas resources

Like some other countries in this region, Turkmenistan is “reminiscent of the old Soviet Union” as it commits serious human rights violations, “particularly through enacting and enforcing laws against freedom of religion or belief,” Katrina Lantos Swett and M. Zuhdi Jasser, Vice Chairs of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), wrote in an op-ed article in The Moscow Times recently.