Turkey is not a safe place for Central Asian opposition members (according to materials from “Radio Ozodi”)

Turkey has been a refuge for many Central Asian activists. Visa relaxations and a small language barrier were considered attractive for Tajik, Uzbek, and Turkmen opposition figures. However, everything is changing, and recent cases of the disappearance of two Tajik opposition members living in Istanbul further emphasize that Turkey has ceased to be a safe place for Central Asian dissidents.

Central Asian governments have increasingly become involved in transnational repression, aiming to intimidate, extradite, and eliminate their alleged enemies abroad. In just the past month, two Tajik political activists living in Turkey have disappeared without a trace. There are serious concerns that they have been taken back to their homeland, where they face long sentences and harsh treatment.

According to human rights expert in Central Asia Steve Sverdloff, Suhrob Zafar, the leader of the Tajik opposition group “Group 24,” has spent the last two weeks trying to find his fellow activist, Nasimjon Sharipov, who also lives in Istanbul and has not been in contact since February 23. But since March 11, the leader of “Group 24” himself has disappeared, and no one can reach him.

“Group 24” was designated as an “extremist organization” following a ruling by the Supreme Court of Tajikistan in October 2014, shortly after it called for protests against the authoritarian regime of President Emomali Rahmon. This ruling coincided with the beginning of large-scale repression in Tajikistan. In 2015, the Supreme Court of Tajikistan made a similar ruling against the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT) – a moderate, religious opposition party that had representation in parliament until the controversial elections in March 2015. That same year, the founder of “Group 24,” businessman Umarali Kuvvatov, was shot dead in Istanbul.

In the 2024 report by the international organization Freedom House, Turkey and Tajikistan were listed among the top five most active participants in transnational repression based on data from the past decade. The other three countries are China, Egypt, and Russia.

Turkey is actively cooperating with another Central Asian country, Turkmenistan, and confirmed reports indicate that at least six Turkmen political activists have been deported to Ashgabat: Farhat Meymankuliev, Rovshen Klychev, Umit Kuzybaev, Dovran Imamov, Maksat Baymurodov, and Serdar Durdulev.

Dursoltan Taganova, a well-known opposition activist from Turkmenistan living in Istanbul, has been on the brink of deportation at least twice. She was detained in 2020 and 2021 but was released both times. Turkmen activists in Turkey have come under scrutiny in a report presented for the Universal Periodic Review of Turkmenistan at the UN Human Rights Council by the Human Rights Protection Group of the University of Southern California and the Vienna-based human rights organization “Freedom for Eurasia.” The authors of the review described Turkey as “an increasingly unsafe environment” for Turkmen political activists and human rights defenders, where Turkmen people in general face “surveillance, travel restrictions, discrimination, and other abuses.”

Eziz Mamedov, another Turkmen resident of Istanbul, reports regular acts of intimidation. For instance, he stated that an unknown assailant stabbed him during a protest outside the consulate. In January 2024, Mamedov announced that he would no longer engage in political activism. According to him, it all seems pointless.