New York, January 14, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns Turkmen authorities’ decision to place a travel ban on Nurgeldi Halykov, a freelance correspondent for the independent Netherlands-based news website Turkmen.news, who was released from prison in June 2024 after serving a four-year sentence on retaliatory charges.
On January 12, border guards at Ashgabat International Airport, in the country’s capital, prevented Halykov from boarding a flight to the United Arab Emirates, where he had been due to start a job outside of journalism, informing him that he was under a temporary travel ban but without providing a reason.
“Journalist Nurgeldi Halykov has already suffered appalling retaliation for his reporting. It’s time Turkmen authorities let him get on with his life,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “Authorities in Turkmenistan must end their relentless harassment of those who collaborate with the country’s exiled media.”
Border guards told Halykov to contact Turkmenistan’s State Migration Service for more information about the ban. Turkmen.news Director Ruslan Myatiev told CPJ on January 14 that Halykov had yet to make an inquiry. CPJ emailed the State Migration Service for comment but did not immediately receive a reply.
Ashgabat police arrested Halykov on July 13, 2020, the day after he forwarded to Turkmen.news a photo that he found on social media of a World Health Organization delegation at a local hotel during the COVID-19 pandemic. Turkmenistan is the only country in the world that says it has not recorded a single case of COVID-19.
A court in September 2020 sentenced him to four years in prison on fraud charges for allegedly failing to repay a loan.
Myatiev told CPJ in March 2021 that he suspected that Halykov’s wider work for Turkmen.news was the reason for his imprisonment.
The media environment in Turkmenistan is one of the most restrictive in the world, and exile-based news outlets rely on networks of correspondents who generally publish anonymously, a number of whom have previously been jailed on retaliatory charges.
In November, Turkmen authorities prevented Soltan Achilova, a reporter for Austria-based Chronicles of Turkmenistan, from traveling abroad to collect an award for the third consecutive year.
This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.
CPJ Staff | Radio Free (2025-01-14T20:13:44+00:00) Journalist Nurgeldi Halykov barred from leaving Turkmenistan. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2025/01/14/journalist-nurgeldi-halykov-barred-from-leaving-turkmenistan/
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