Mobile Phones Targeted by Turkmen Secret Police

The security service in Turkmenistan is increasing its already high level of surveillance of citizens, and appears to have identified mobile phone use as a potential threat.

At the beginning of November, National Security Minister Yaylym Berdiev outlined the steps his agency was taking to "maintain social stability, unity and harmony".

No details of these measures were released, but commentators in the country already see signs of a further clampdown in this already highly controlled society.

When Turkmenistan marked 20 years of independence from the Soviet Union in late October, participants in parades and other public events were banned from using mobile phones.

According to a local rights activist, the measure was not a one-off.

"The ban on using mobile phones, supposedly in the interests of public security, has been in place for the last six months," he said. "It came to the fore after the explosions in Abadan, when people used the mobile internet to report the news."

(See Web Users Evade Controls to Report Turkmen Blast on how in July 2011 residents of the town used new media to tell a story that would otherwise have been covered up.)

In restaurants and cafés in the centre of the capital Ashgabat, staff have been forbidden to use fixed phone lines as well as mobiles.

At the Grand Hotel in Ashgabat, one of the city's largest, staff say they are subjected to humiliating searches at the start and end of their shifts.

"Informing and checking up on people continues unabated," a local media-watcher said. "Hotels and other public spaces are littered with bugging devices, so people have to be careful what they say."

A local journalist said security agents had increasingly been asking him what the public mood was.

The oppressive system dates from the late president Saparmurat Niazov, and continues under his successor Gurbanguly Berdymuhammedov. Dissidents, activists in any non-government sector and even artists are subject to surveillance and repressive measures; journalists are closely watched; blacklists of "undesirables" are maintained, including some 16,000 who are not allowed to leave the country; informing is encouraged; and the Stalinist term "enemy of the people" has been revived.

"Security ministry officers can turn up at the home of anyone subject to a travel ban at any time and check up on them," Vyacheslav Mamedov, leader of Civil Democratic Union of Turkmenistan based in The Netherlands, said. "Their homes are watched, their phones tapped, and their mail censored. We aren't seeing any relaxation here."

According to Mamedov, the state-run media are riddled with security officers, other institutions are packed with full-time informers, and the local offices of the few foreign organisations present in Turkmenistan have been infiltrated.

A National Security Ministry officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that new measures were in place to combat terrorism, "cyber threats", and "enemies of Turkmen democracy".

He said the agency recently caught a spy taking pictures of military facilities, and stopped an attempt to pass information abroad.

"There's real risk that radicalism and terrorism will spread, so the National Security Ministry is tasked with maintaining order," he said. "It would be wrong to think the ministry's duties are confined to gathering damaging information about suspicious persons, and placing agents on the ground."