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The representative of the Belarusian opposition, R. Pratasevičius, spent many years of his life fighting the Lukashenko regime. He has been actively involved in the resistance since he was a teenager, and in the fall of last year he actively participated in the information campaign of the protests, which was later attended by representatives of the opposition. de facto In the activities of the team of Sviatlan Cichanouskaya, who won the 2020 presidential elections in Belarus.
On May 23, the flight from Athens to Vilnius fraudulently landed in Minsk. R. Pratasevičius also flew on this plane, who, along with his friend Sofia Sapega, was detained. Traveling companions said that before the plane landed in Minsk, the opposition enthusiastically explained to the plane’s crew that it would be sentenced to death as soon as it fell into the hands of the regime.
R. Pratasevičius was held for a long time without permission to meet with lawyers on June 3. appeared on Lukashenko-controlled television video of an interrogation in which he allegedly pleaded guilty to charges against him for acting against the state. He faces up to 15 years in prison for this. The same month, he appeared at a regime-sponsored press conference criticizing the opposition and calling Lukashenko “a good leader whom he respected as a man.”
On June 25, 2021, R. Pratasevičius and his friend S. Sapega were placed under house arrest by court decision. According to the regime’s prosecutors, the couple agreed to cooperate and “extradite their curators to compensate for the damage they caused.”
The communists remained in power, with the same one-sided leader
In October 1990, 50-year-old Saparmurat Niyazov became the first president of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic and later of independent Turkmenistan. A year later, he also received the highest state award – the Order of the Hero of Turkmenistan.
Serdar (translated as commander) became one of the authoritarian leaders of the “new generation” in the former USSR. A one-party government, a cult of personality, endless statues of oneself, a fully controlled media and a ban on traveling abroad without the permission of the government regime are just some of the characteristics of Turkmenbashi (official title Niyazov), some of which can be seen in other countries.
As soon as he came to power, Niyazov formulated a new national idea in his book Ruhnama. For many years this book was equated with the Qur’an, and in universities students had to give an account of their comprehension tasks. The main message of this book is the uniqueness of Turkmen as a nation. The text mentions several times that Noah may have been a Turkmen, and the wheel was also invented by the Turkmen.
In 2002-2003 the last massive protest against the dictatorship took place in the country. It ended with mass arrests of opponents and random citizens, torture, political assassinations and demonstrative “apologies” on television.
Last chance
The protest movement in Turkmenistan faced much greater problems than all other post-Soviet republics, including Russia or Belarus. After the collapse of the USSR, an official party remained in the country. The state even installed several special prisons at once, to which exclusively political dissidents were sent.
The last opposition movement in the country developed in 2001-2003, becoming its leader in 1993-1999. Minister of Foreign Affairs and Interior of the country Boris Shichmuradov.
In 2001, Shichmuradov announced his withdrawal from opposition to Niyazov, shortly after announcing his plans to make the Turkmen “president for the rest of his life.” He and several other former officials formed the Turkmenistan People’s Democratic Movement, whose goal was to hold open elections in the country.
In 2002, Niyazov obtained the right to remain president for the rest of his life, without elections or restrictions, although he promised that “normal elections” would be held in the country in 2008, according to tjournal. Soon there were reports in the capital of attempts to strike: allegedly liberal officials, military and force structures are speaking out against a leader who has gained unlimited power.
An additional problem for Niyazov became financial problems. In 1998, the poverty rate in Turkmenistan was 93 percent. of the entire population of the country. This was the last study of a similar nature, as the country’s economic data was then simply classified and access to international experts was blocked.
In November 2002, three months after winning the right to an “eternal” presidency, the government-controlled media announced an assassination attempt on Niyazov in Ashgabat. The presidential tuple was allegedly shot dead by gunmen from a truck. No one was miraculously injured during the incident, but a television story dramatically explained that “the president alone survived the miracle.”
Foreign media later criticized the information provided about the alleged assault: no serious witnesses were provided, and the locals reported that the city was regularly closed during the procession movement and that access to the Turkmen was not theoretically possible, not even by truck. State media fired at the royal front, in the adjacent lane of traffic, from a moving truck.
The following day, Niyazov named senior Turkmen officials as organizers of the alleged assault: the same former minister, B. Shichmuradov, the Minister of Agriculture, Imamberdy Yklymov, and the prominent diplomat, Batyr Berdyev.
Voluntary Surrender, Psychotropic Substances, and “We Are All Despicable Creatures”
The leader of the Popular Democratic Movement denied all the accusations of attempted assassination of the president and said that the shooting of the courtship was a staging to repress the opposition. Soon the persecution of his relatives began and the authorities arrested his younger brother, Constantine.
Initially, the opposition planned peaceful protests in key Turkmenistan cities, demanding Niyazov’s resignation and free elections. However, the scale of the repression was so widespread and severe that hundreds of people were detained who had nothing to do with the protests.
On December 24, 2002, Shichmuradov announced that he would surrender to the government to avoid further repression against his supporters. He also stated in advance that he was not responsible for any words that might appear in the Turkmen media on his behalf after his arrest.
“Given the methods used against detainees in Niyazov prisons, I can only guess what will happen to me in the near future. “We have repeatedly witnessed not only physical torture, but also the use of cruel methods of psychological pressure with various psychotropic drugs or other means of personality,” he explained before his arrest.
He then explained that he could not take responsibility for his words, which could be provided by the media controlled by S. Niyazov or by the forces of order.
Four days later, Shchmuradov’s resignation was shown on national television, in which he “admitted his guilt”, laying dirt on himself and his allies.
“We are a criminal group, a mafia. There is no normal person among us. We are all despicable people. I am not a man who can rule the state, but, on the contrary, a criminal who can only destroy the state … While we lived in Russia, we used drugs and recruited mercenaries to commit a terrorist act while intoxicated. “Our task was to destabilize the situation in Turkmenistan, overthrow the constitutional order and carry out an attack on the president,” Chichmuradov said at the time.
Dealing with families and television appearances
The crackdown did not end with the arrest of Shchmuradov. Entire families were detained and their relatives or friends were sent to prisons along with the accused. The brother of the former Minister of Agriculture was arrested and beaten, he lost some of his sight and hearing.
Konstantin Shimuradov stated at that time that “his only fault is that he is Boris’s brother. “You think you are doing justice, although in reality you are obeying the dictatorship on the conveyor belt. But I wish you many years of life to see the changes in our country, “he explained.
Esenaman, the son of Orazmuchamed Iklymov, a Turkmen journalist living in Russia, was also forced to appear on Turkmen television and “talk about his relationship with his parents.” During the story, he repeatedly claimed that his father was not a man but an animal.
Over the next month, the “apology marathon” continued on state television. “Guvanč Dzhumayev, a former security guard, Anadurd Anasachhatov, former consul in Afghanistan,” apologized and demanded the severest punishment for himself. In total, there are as many as several dozen television tourists appearing publicly.
At the time, Niyazov said the culprits had been identified within days and told the courts to “deal with them within a week.” However, the investigation continued throughout the month of January.
According to the experts, the duration of the process was due to the fact that the defendants were tortured so severely during interrogations that they could not be transported to the courtroom and shown in public. In some cases, their faces were simply painted to avoid bruising.
All of the defendants were found guilty and Shchmuradov was sentenced to 25 years in prison within just five days of his voluntary surrender. At that time, this was the maximum penalty under the Penal Code. However, at Niyazov’s suggestion, the sentence was “commuted” to life imprisonment.
After the sentencing, B. Shchmuradov and B. Berdyiev simply disappeared. The exact place of their imprisonment is unknown, and according to one of the most popular versions, they were held in the basement of a security building, where they spent months or several years. During a visit to the United States, he claimed that both opponents are alive. However, there is no further information on the former ministers and their fate.
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