A journalist and human rights activist has died in prison in Turk-menistan, according to a rights group whose director blamed the government on Thursday for what he said appeared to have been her violent death.
The body of Ogulsapar Muradova was displayed in prison on Thursday and was seen by her relatives, said Aaron Rhodes, executive director of the Vienna-based International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights, citing contacts in the tightly controlled Central Asian nation. Her body had a major head wound and there was evidence of strangulation, he said.
"It's an extremely serious crime that has taken place," Rhodes said. "First of all because she was unfairly tried and imprisoned, and now she appears to have been the victim of an extrajudicial killing."
PHOTO: AFP
Muradova was associated with the Bulgaria-based Turkmenistan Helsinki Foundation rights group, and was also a reporter with US-funded Radio Liberty. She and two other rights defenders were arrested in June and later handed down sentences ranging from six to seven years, according to the International Helsinki Foundation. The charges were unclear.
The press freedom advocacy group Reporters Without Borders also demanded a full investigation into Muradova's death, and expressed concern about the other two prisoners, one of whom it said was employed by French television production company Galaxie-Presse.
It said Muradova's adult children had been shown her body at a morgue in the capital, Ashgabat.
Radio Liberty said in a statement that Turkmen authorities had declined the family's request that a medical examiner at the morgue conduct an examination, but allowed Muradova's two adult daughters to take their mother's body home after they appealed to the US Embassy for help.
The family called a medical examiner, but Turkmen security agents surrounded the apartment building allowed no visitors to the Muradova family, it said.
Jeff Trimble, Radio Liberty's acting president, said that Muradova's death was "a shocking indictment of the Turkmen regime."
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