Jakob Gijsbert de Hoop Scheffer
Chairman-in-Office
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe
PO Box 20061
2500 EB The Hague
The Netherlands

Dear Mr. De Hoop Scheffer,

I am writing to convey Human Rights Watch’s deepest concern about the continued detention of Farid Tukhbatullin, an environmental activist from Turkmenistan, and to kindly request the OSCE’s assistance in facilitating visas to Turkmenistan for international monitors to observe his forthcoming trial.

I would first like to commend the OSCE for applying the Moscow Mechanism to address the current human rights crisis in Turkmenistan. We believe that such close OSCE scrutiny and the official record it will produce will contribute significantly to establishing accountability for human rights violations that have followed the November 25 assassination attempt. We look forward to working with the OSCE as the mission draws nearer.

We welcome OSCE’s efforts to make public its concern about Mr. Tukhbatullin and to visit him in custody, and commend the work of the OSCE Centre in Ashgabat in following the case. We hope that in attending his trial, we can contribute to bringing transparency to this case. As you are no doubt aware, Mr. Tukhbatullin is charged with illegally crossing the Uzbek-Turkmen border (article 214.1 of the Turkmen criminal code) and failing to disclose a crime (article 210.1). The Ministry of National Security has completed the investigation and turned the case over to the Procuracy General. No trial date has yet been set.

The first charge derives from an incident in September 2001, when Mr. Tukhbatullin crossed the border legally; Turkmen border guards, however, failed to stamp his passport. The second charge derives from an international conference on human rights in Turkmenistan that Mr. Tukhbatullin attended in November 2002. Authorities allege that former Foreign Minister Avdy Kuliev announced that Boris Shikhmuradov planned a violent overthrow of the government in the near future, and that in failing to report this information to Turkmen authorities upon his return to Turkmenistan, Mr. Tukhbatullin concealed a planned crime.

Human Rights Watch attended this conference, which was organized by the International Helsinki Federation, and I can personally assure you that no such allegations were made. We believe the Ministry of National Security is bringing these charges to intimidate people like Mr. Tukhbatullin, and to assure Turkmenistan’s courageous civic activists’ further isolation by preventing them from attending international fora.

An international presence at Mr. Tukhbatullin’s trial is the best way to ensure the proceedings’ transparency and to demonstrate the tremendous international concern surrounding the groundless charges against him. The OSCE has a strong commitment in Central Asia to transparency in judicial proceedings. We hope that you will raise with Turkmen officials at the highest levels the matter of visas for international trial monitors, including from Human Rights Watch. We hope that this will remain a priority for the Ashgabat centre.

Thank you for your attention to the concerns raised in this letter.