A deportation center in Turkey was unable to provide the prosecutor’s office with camera recordings in the case of the disappearance of Turkmen bloggers
There has been a new alarming turn in the case of the mysterious disappearance of Turkmen bloggers Alisher Sakhatov and Abdulla Orusov, which has been causing concern among human rights activists and international organizations for almost a year. The deportation center in the Turkish city of Edirne, where the activists were held for several months, was unable to provide the prosecutor’s office with video surveillance recordings for the key date of their disappearance. As reported by the Turkmen Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights (THF), the local migration management, in response to a request from the Edirne prosecutor’s office, stated that the recordings for July 24, 2025 — the day when the administrative detention of foreigners, including Sakhatov and Orusov, ended — are unavailable. The official document states that the video storage system at the center is designed for only six months. Thus, at the time of the prosecutor’s request, access to the archive was lost. This response was given after the prosecutor’s office sent an official request demanding the urgent provision of video materials as part of an investigation into a possible crime against officials. Camera recordings could have shed light on the bloggers’ final hours at the facility and helped establish exactly what happened on the day of their disappearance.
Turkmen human rights activist Annadurdy Hadzhiev believes that the absence of video recordings only strengthens suspicions of a possible attempt to hide the truth. According to him, from the very first days after the bloggers’ disappearance, the actions of the center’s administration appeared strange. Specifically, Sakhatov warned his relatives in advance that communication would be cut off, allegedly due to repair work. At the same time, according to relatives, their phone accounts had been topped up, and he intended to get in touch immediately after his release. Furthermore, the director of the center went on vacation almost immediately after the bloggers disappeared, which hindered lawyers’ prompt access to the video recordings. According to Hadzhiev, despite the presence of a deputy, the recordings were not provided “while the trail was hot”. Additionally, lawyers were repeatedly directed to the city of Sinop, where, as it turned out later, the bloggers never appeared. All these circumstances, according to human rights activists, may indicate a purposeful attempt to mislead.
Court Decisions and Disappearance
Alisher Sakhatov and Abdulla Orusov, who lived in Turkey and actively criticized the authorities of Turkmenistan through social networks, were detained in April 2025. They were held in the deportation center for almost three months. In June, a court in the Turkish city of Samsun ordered their expulsion; however, the defense appealed the decision. On July 14, the Constitutional Court of Turkey decided to suspend the deportation. Nevertheless, on July 24, communication with the bloggers was severed. Since then, their whereabouts remain unknown. The situation has caused a wide resonance. International human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch, stated that the possible deportation of the bloggers to Turkmenistan would be a serious violation of Turkey’s international obligations, given the risk of torture and persecution. The Turkmen Helsinki Foundation filed a complaint with the United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearances, and it was accepted for consideration. Turkish Member of Parliament Omer Faruk Gergerlioglu has repeatedly raised this issue, demanding clarifications from the authorities. He also requested information on how the Constitutional Court’s decision was implemented and whether a full investigation had been initiated.
Alisher Sakhatov’s wife, Gulale Khasanova, last spoke with her husband on July 24, 2025. Since then, according to her, she has received no official information about his fate, despite numerous appeals to Turkish authorities. Appeals by the family to Turkmenistan also went unanswered. Sakhatov’s father sent requests to the highest state bodies, including the president of the country, but there was no reaction. The case of Sakhatov and Orusov is not an isolated one. According to human rights activists, since 2023, several Turkmen activists who criticized the authorities have been forcibly returned to their homeland from Turkey and Russia. The fate of many of them remains unknown. The absence of key video recordings seriously complicates the investigation and undermines trust in the official version of events. Human rights activists insist on the necessity of international control and a transparent investigation. The question of the fate of Alisher Sakhatov and Abdulla Orusov remains open and, with every new fact, raises more questions for which there are currently no answers.
