Mass Spying On Citizens In Turkmenistan

According to Freedom House, Turkmenistan is one of the world’s least free countries. This article by openDemocracy explains how the country's system works and how strictly it monitors the opposition at home and abroad. 

openDemocracy obtained some classified documents that comprise the period between 2008 and 2014. They expose the key role of Turkmenistan's Embassy in Ankara in spying on Turkmen citizens living in Turkey.

The system is simple, if laborious. The education attaché at the embassy requests a complete list of all Turkmen students from Turkish universities, as well as the courses they are enrolled in. This information is entered into Excel files – some of which have been obtained by openDemocracy – along with the students’ date of birth, passport number and permanent address in Turkmenistan. The data is then passed on to informers, themselves Turkmen students who are lured into collaborating with the government in exchange for financial aid. According to the documents, there is one designated informer per university dormitory who is assigned a list of students to spy on. Informers work independently and do not know the identity of other informers. They fill in their own entries in the Excel files, which are then sent to the embassy and on to Ashgabat, in a constant back-and-forth of information.

Anyone reading and commenting on Turkmen opposition sites in Vienna and Prague has been criminalized. Satellite dishes have long been dismantled. The only internet provider is run by the government. Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, VKontakte have all been blocked. 

Recently, the State News Agency of Turkmenistan reported that the vice president of Rohde und Schwarz, a German technology company, had met Turkmen president Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov. (There is now) fear that the government’s real aim is to obtain devices to monitor and block mobile and satellite communications, as well as internet access.

This story reads like a tale of fear, from total darkness.