Turkmenistan Security Forces Demand Deletion of Social Media Pleas for Help

Staff from Turkmenistan's Ministry of National Security and police in Ahal Region are visiting citizens' homes and demanding the deletion of video recordings in which people request financial assistance to buy medicine. Among those seeking help are people with disabilities and pensioners. The Turkmen Service of RFE/RL — Radio Azatlyk — reported this on October 27, citing residents of the region.

A resident who asked to be called Menli recounted that after publishing a video on TikTok, police came to her home and demanded she delete the recording. After her husband's death, she quit work to care for a child with a disability, and state benefits are insufficient for rent, food, and medicine. According to her account, the officers — who arrived in civilian clothes — threatened to take her child away and place him in a boarding school, and also warned that publishing such videos damages the country's reputation.

She stated that the officers did not inquire about her difficulties, did not ask why she published the video, and did not clarify "which institutions she had approached for help and how they themselves could assist," Radio Azatlyk reports.

Another regional resident reported that some security personnel expressed sympathy but still demanded deletion of the posts — one of them explained this as following orders under threat of losing his job. Attempts to obtain comments from local authorities, including the Ahal Region police department, were unsuccessful: no one answered calls on October 27.

Radio Azatlyk has noted a growing number of such videos in Turkmen-language social networks amid economic hardship and unemployment. Observers who spoke with the outlet on condition of anonymity link this trend to the fact that people cannot resolve their problems through state institutions. In parallel, citizens in Lebap Region are being ordered to refrain from using social media, and print shops in Ashgabat have refused since October 21, on instructions from the MNB, to accept orders for printing appeals to the president and state agencies.