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UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 ASHGABAT 000159 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR SCA/CEN, DRL 
AID/W FOR EE/EA 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PREL PHUM KDEM TX
SUBJECT:  TURKMENISTAN:  HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION MOVING 
FORWARD ON LEGISLATION AND NATIONAL STATUS REPORT 
 
REF: 07 ASHGABAT 1003 
 
¶1.  (U)  Sensitive but unclassified.  Not for public Internet. 
 
¶2.  (SBU)  SUMMARY:  The commission responsible for ensuring 
that Turkmenistan meets its international human rights 
obligations (reftel) has constructed a game plan for revising 
or drafting needed legislation within the timeline to which 
the government has agreed.  The commission appears to have 
established a set of priorities and has created working 
groups that will ensure the work is done in a way that is 
acceptable to the government, but without input from ordinary 
citizens.  Meanwhile, the commission is in the process of 
drafting what will be a key document representing the 
country's efforts to fulfill its human rights obligations. 
Defending that document in Geneva is likely to be a 
challenge.  END SUMMARY. 
 
¶3.  (SBU)  In a meeting January 30 with Institute for 
Democracy and Human Rights Director Shirin Akhmedova, poloff 
gained some insights into the ongoing work of the 
Interdepartmental Commission for the Fulfillment of 
International Obligations of Turkmenistan in the Area of 
Human Rights.  She described the second official meeting of 
the Commission, which convened January 5, as a progress 
report for Commission Chair/Deputy Cabinet Chairman/Foreign 
Minister Rashid Meredov.  The primary achievement had been 
the commission's proposal that priority be given to efforts 
to revamp the Family, Criminal, Criminal Procedure, Civil, 
and Housing codes.  She expects Meredov to call another 
meeting of the Commission in February, suggesting that he 
wants to keep the work moving apace to be able to show the 
international community Turkmenistan is making progress. 
 
¶4.  (SBU)  Akhmedova said there were several general problems 
with these old codes, which were, for the most part, lightly 
revised Soviet codes.  Elements of the old laws tended to 
hold redundancies of subsections found in other laws.  Worse, 
some laws conflicted with others.  She said the Commission 
had established a number of working groups, made up of legal 
experts and government bureaucrats from relevant agencies. 
The working groups, in consultation with domestic and foreign 
experts, recommended textual revisions and the Commission had 
the final say.  The Commission's members, comprised of 
representatives from key ministries, agencies, the Mejlis 
(Parliament), People's Council, and public associations, then 
clear the revised text through their own bureaucracies to 
assure that any revisions would not affect key departmental 
policies or practices. 
 
¶5.  (SBU)  The Commission is breaking the work into blocks to 
streamline the revision and drafting of Turkmen laws related 
to human rights.  The chunks were divided by general subject, 
then tasked to working groups of subject experts and 
government officials who do the analysis and draft a proposed 
text.  In coordination with the United Nations, Turkmenistan 
is to complete the reform of all its human rights-oriented 
legislation by 2012. 
 
¶6.  (SBU)  She indicated revising the Family Code will be the 
Institute's next priority, and said some basic groundwork is 
already underway through consultation with UNICEF, the 
European Union's TACIS Program, and UNDP.  The Institute is 
also doing the groundwork for revising the old Law on 
Elections, working with UNDP and OSCE experts.  She said the 
government wants to gain the capacity to monitor election 
procedures, and wants to revise the election law before the 
next important elections take place.  (NOTE:  Election of all 
the Parliament deputies is scheduled to take place in 
December 2008.  END NOTE.) 
 
 
ASHGABAT 00000159  002 OF 002 
 
 
¶7.  (SBU)  Work on the criminal code is getting underway, 
with European jurists, trusted German experts like Rolf 
Kniepper, and UNICEF providing input.  This law, she said, is 
to be a completely original draft rather than a revision, and 
will devote special attention to the subject of juvenile 
criminal activity.  Interestingly, she identified juvenile 
criminal behavior as that of children under the age of 14. 
Although work has not yet gotten underway, Akhmedova also 
noted that the Institute will eventually be involved in the 
development of laws on disabled citizens' rights, prohibiting 
racial discrimination, and a revision of the citizenship law. 
 
¶8.  (SBU)  In addition to legislative reform, the Commission 
is also overseeing the drafting of a series of reports to be 
submitted to the United Nations within two years.  The most 
significant of these is a self-assessment documenting 
Turkmenistan's efforts to fulfill all human rights-related 
obligations as described in the Universal Declaration of 
Human Rights (UDHR).  The Government of Turkmenistan is 
scheduled to send a delegation to Geneva to present this 
document to the UN's Human Rights Council in December 2008. 
Akhmedova noted that there are a number of other reports that 
the Commission will assemble between now and 2010, including 
reports on Turkmenistan's economic, social and cultural 
rights, citizen and political rights, and efforts to end 
torture and racial discrimination. 
 
¶9.  (SBU)  Information on the submission of the UDHR report, 
available on the UN website, indicates that three parties 
will each present reports on their own perspective of 
Turkmenistan's progress on human rights in a single session: 
the Turkmen government delegation, representatives of the 
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and "other 
relevant stakeholders" -- likely international NGOs, human 
rights groups, and academics.  (NOTE:  Turkmen exile 
opposition groups, some of whom focus exclusively on human 
rights issues, are likely to be part of the third group, 
guaranteeing that this will be a dramatic session.  END 
NOTE.) 
 
¶10.  (SBU)  COMMENT:  The Human Rights Commission appears to 
have a game plan in place to manage the workload of revising 
or drafting the country's human rights legislation, and is 
making use of experts within and outside of government to 
create legislation that will be synchronized with established 
government policy and palatable to the UN.  Further, 
government officials have made it clear that provincial and 
local-level officials should be trained and educated on 
implementation of the new laws.   END COMMENT. 
HOAGLAND