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When was the last time you renewed your passport?
It probably wasn’t too big a deal. Maybe you complained about it taking too long or costing too much, but no more than that. You may not even remember.
It’s one of those tedious bits of bureaucracy you just have to go through every five or ten years. Even if you live abroad, it’s probably not complicated. You simply go to your nearest embassy or consulate with the forms filled out. Or you may even be able to do the whole process online and have your shiny new passport sent to you in the post.
But some authoritarian regimes have turned such routine paperwork into a method of controlling citizens living abroad. You can’t just pop in at the embassy. Forget about doing it online. No, you have to go back “home.”
Once you’re there, authorities can do what they like with you. You know this, and you know what they do to people who say things they don’t like. So, you shut up, even when abroad, because you need that document.
In the country where you live, the government requires it for all sorts of things, like your visa and residency permit. You need legal status in your host country, and those documents are essential for everything, like being able to work, study, and take part in social programs. Without an ID, it’s extremely difficult to claim your rights.
Turkmenistan is one example of an authoritarian regime that practices this kind of transnational repression: extortion by passport. (Belarus is another.) Turkmenistan authorities compel citizens living abroad to go back to Turkmenistan to renew their passport.
Going back entails huge risks for them. Turkmenistan is among the most repressive countries in the world. Authorities sometimes disappear dissenters, and for years, their families don’t even know if they’re alive. Torture is commonplace.
In short, Turkmens living abroad have a terrible choice: live undocumented in their host country, risking all kinds of hardships and deportation there, or return to Turkmenistan for a passport and risk being banned from foreign travel or worse, disappeared or tortured.
The best solution to all this would be if Turkmenistan simply issued passports abroad, like many other countries do. But until that happens, countries hosting Turkmen migrants – like Türkiye – need to realize this is a problem and act accordingly.
Expired passport or not, no country should force anyone to return to Turkmenistan if they would face the risk of persecution or torture there. And no Turkmen migrants living outside should suffer just because Turkmen authorities refuse to renew their passports abroad.
