Saparmamed Nepeskuliyev, Alternative Turkmenistan News; Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Medium:Internet, Radio
Charge:Retaliatory
Imprisoned:July 7, 2015

Nepeskuliyev, a contributor to the independent news website Alternative Turkmenistan News (ATN) and the Turkmen service of the U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, has been in custody since July 7, 2015, according to his news outlet.

The journalist's family filed a police report when Nepeskuliyev stopped responding to phone calls and failed to return home from his reporting trip to the western city of Awaza on the Caspian Sea on July 7, Ruslan Myatiyev, the director of ATN, told CPJ.

Nepeskuliyev had reported on water shortages and the poor social and economic conditions in Turkmenistan and photographed expensive villas said to belong to state officials, according to Myatiyev and a statement by the New York-based group Human Rights Watch.

According to Myatiyev and news reports, after the family filed a police report, authorities told them Nepeskuliyev had been arrested. Myatiyev, citing the journalist's family, told CPJ that authorities accused Nepeskuliyev of possessing a banned medication. The charge carries a prison sentence of up to 20 years, according to CPJ's review of the Turkmen criminal code.

On August 31, authorities sentenced Nepeskuliyev to three years in prison for drug possession, according to ATN.

A week later, Nepeskuliyev's mother told the RFE/RL Turkmen service that authorities had denied her family access to information about the journalist's status and whereabouts, and barred her from visiting him because of security concerns over a visit to the region by President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov.

Human rights activists and journalists raised Nepeskuliyev's arrest during their address to the Turkmen delegation at a Warsaw conference on human rights and democracy in September 2015, held under the auspices of the Vienna-based Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, ATN reported. In his response Vepa Khadzhiyev, Turkmenistan's deputy foreign minister, denied that Nepeskuliyev is a journalist.

To coincide with talks between the U.S. State Department and the Turkmen foreign ministry, RFE/RL, ATN, and representatives of international human rights and press freedom organizations sent an open letter on October 14 to Foreign Minister Rashid Meredov, asking that he intervene to have the journalist released. The letter, published by Reporters Without Borders, said authorities had barred the journalist's family and lawyer from seeing him in detention, and had not provided them with a copy of his verdict, which has prevented Nepeskuliyev from filing an appeal. "This failure to release information pertaining to his case has been attributed to a travel ban in the region surrounding Turkmenbashi, near the prison where Nepeskuliyev's family believes he has been transferred. Because of the abysmal prison conditions in Turkmenistan and because Nepeskuliyev is being held incommunicado, we are very concerned for his health and safety," the letter said.

In October 2015, CPJ called on U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to demand the release of Nepeskuliyev during his visit to the country.

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