TURKMENISTAN: Second conscientious objector sentenced to corrective labour
By Felix Corley
Forum18 (13.02.2025) – A second Jehovah’s Witness conscientious objector is serving a corrective labour sentence, where the state takes a fifth of his wages. On 27 January, a Dashoguz Region court sentenced 20-year-old Agabek Rozbayew to 18 months’ corrective labour. The indictment shows he informed the Military Conscription Office in September 2022 that he could not perform compulsory military service on grounds of conscience. More than 10 others appear to be under criminal investigation. An assistant to regime-appointed Ombudsperson Yazdursun Gurbannazarowa told Forum 18: “I have never heard of such kinds of problems.” Muslim prisoner of conscience Myratdurdy Shamyradow is paralysed in prison hospital.
On 27 January, Shabat District Court in the north-eastern Dashoguz Region sentenced 20-year-old Jehovah’s Witness conscientious objector Agabek Rozbayew to one year and six months’ corrective labour. This means that while he does not have to go to prison, he must pay the State 20 per cent of his salary from his employment during that period. Rozbayew did not appeal and the verdict has entered into force, a court official told Forum 18.
Rozbayew’s verdict marks the second time since December 2024 that a court has convicted a Jehovah’s Witness conscientious objector for refusing compulsory military service. On 18 December 2024, the regime imposed a punishment on a conscientious objector for the first known time since 2021, when 16 jailed conscientious objectors were freed under amnesty.
On 18 December 2024, Bayramaly City Court handed down the maximum two-year jail term to 21-year-old Jehovah’s Witness conscientious objector Arslan Wepayew. On 7 January 2025, Mary Regional Court changed his sentence on appeal to two years’ corrective labour (see below).
“We are deeply concerned that this is the second criminal case against a conscientious objector in recent times,” Jehovah’s Witnesses told Forum 18. “We are greatly saddened that, after a brief period of calm since May 2021, Turkmenistan has resumed prosecuting and imprisoning conscientious objectors, in violation of Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which it acceded on 1 May 1997. The government has consistently ignored the UN Human Rights Committee’s Views censuring Turkmenistan for violating the ICCPR and obligating it to provide a genuine alternative civilian service not under military command” (see below).
More than 10 other Jehovah’s Witness conscientious objectors appear to be under criminal investigation, Jehovah’s Witnesses told Forum 18.