TURKMENISTAN: Conscientious objector jailed, awaiting second trial

[Isabella]

Arrested in December 2020, 20-year-old Jehovah's Witness conscientious objector Ruslan Artykmuradov is awaiting trial in Turkmenabat's Pre-Trial Detention Prison for refusing compulsory military service. He offered to do an alternative civilian service, but Turkmenistan does not offer this, despite repeated United Nations calls. Artykmuradov has already served a one-year jail term on the same charges. If convicted, he will become the 25th conscientious objector known to have been jailed since 2018.

Police arrested 20-year-old Jehovah's Witness conscientious objector to military service Ruslan Artykmuradov on 15 December 2020. They transferred him on 18 December to the Pre-Trial Detention Prison in Turkmenabat in the eastern Lebap Region, where he remains awaiting trial for refusing compulsory military service. No trial date has yet been set. He has already served a one-year jail term on the same charges.

Prosecutors opened the second criminal case against Artykmuradov in December 2020 after the Military Conscription Office rejected his request to do an alternative civilian service (which does not exist in Turkmenistan). Turkmenistan has rejected repeated United Nations calls to introduce such a service (see below).

If convicted, Artykmuradov would become the 25th conscientious objector to military service known to have been convicted and jailed since January 2018. All of them are Jehovah's Witnesses (see below).

If he is convicted at his expected trial, Artykmuradov would become the fifth conscientious objector (all of them Jehovah's Witnesses) to be convicted twice of the same "crime" since jailings of conscientious objectors resumed in 2018. Such second convictions may be increasing (see below).

Jehovah's Witnesses are conscientious objectors to military service and do not undertake any kind of activity supporting any country's military. But they are willing to undertake an alternative, totally civilian form of service, as is the right of all conscientious objectors to military service under international human rights law..

Including Bahtiyar Amirjanovich Atahanov (born 17 June 2000), who has been serving a jail term since July 2019, eight Jehovah's Witness conscientious objectors are serving jail terms of between one and four years. All eight are imprisoned in Seydi Labour Camp in the eastern Lebap Region. Three of them are serving second sentences (see full list below).

Turkmenistan has ignored repeated international calls, for example by the United Nations Human Rights Committee, to introduce a genuine civilian alternative to compulsory military service, to stop prosecuting and punishing conscientious objectors, and to compensate those it has punished.

Read more: https://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2628