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CIVIL NEWS
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority It is time to sit back and reflect.
You Can Go, But You’ll Be Arrested Then
The story of a Turkmenian dissident, Annadurdy Hadjiev, has taken an unexpected turn. The Kazakhstani authorities have been trying to prevent him from attending a review conference of OSCE in Astana by delaying issue of the visa (see the details at: http://www.memo.ru/eng/news/2010/11/24/2411101.html)
After HRC Memorial rose public awareness on the visa problems in its publication, in the afternoon of November 22, 2010 the refugee received a call from Vienna from a deputy of the permanent Kazakhstani representative for OSCE, Usen Suleymenov, and said that it had been positively decided to issue the visa for him. Suleymenov assured that Hadjiev can visit Kazakhstan freely since his name was not listed on Interpol lists (previously the Turkmenian authorities demanded that Hadjiev must be extradited on the grounds of accusations of economic violations. However, the request was declined by the Bulgarian court).
After conversation with Suleymenov Hadjiev called Kazakhstani embassy in Sofia. Talgat Ketebaev, the embassy employee, confirmed that they were ready to issue the visa, though being a man who professes Islam, advised the emigrant not to go to Kazakhstan since he would be arrested immediately after crossing the border. According to Ketebaev, Prosecutor’s General Office of Kazakhstan has already received a request from the Turkmen party to extradite the refugee within Minsk convention framework. The arguments that execution of the request of the Turkmen party would contradict Kazakhstan’s international obligations were ignored.
Hadjiev informed HRC Memorial that, regardless of the threats, he was ready to fly to Astana in case the visa was issued in a timely manner.
During the previous months the Turkmenian authorities have been pressurizing Kazakhstan by threatening to boycott the summit in Astana in case the Turkmen dissidents who are currently residing abroad are allowed to participate in the OSCE event.
Apparently, in an attempt to appease Ashgabat, Kazakhstani embassy in Turkmenistan rejected to issue visas to four civil society representatives in October. Three of them have been invited to attend a UNDP conference on demographic and gender issues in Almaty, and one has been invited to a human rights seminar organized by a local representative office of the Supreme Commissar of the UNO on human rights.
Vitaliy Ponomarev,
Head of the Program of monitoring human rights violations in Central Asia