No Passport, No Peace for Turkmen Abroad

Ashir, a 29-year-old Turkmen, arrived in Turkiye from Russia in 2018, having dropped out of university due to financial difficulties. The following spring, he lost his passport, a nightmare for any traveler. Ashir went to his country’s embassy for help.

According to a new Human Rights Watch report, Ashir, among others, was refused aid and instead told he needed “to go back to Turkmenistan and apply for passport replacement there.”

It’s not just a rigid bureaucratic quirk. Besides being costly for migrant workers to return to Turkmenistan, Ashgabat regularly (and randomly) bars its citizens from traveling abroad. Those that return know that they may not be able to leave again because that’s precisely what has happened to others.

In a new report – titled “‘It’s Like I Live in a Cage’ Turkmen Authorities’ Denial of Passports to Turkmen Citizens in Türkiye” – Human Rights Watch outlines the tremendous difficulties Turkmen expats encounter when trying to renew expired, expiring, or otherwise nonvalid passports at the country's missions abroad, particularly in Turkiye where a large faction of Turkmen reside..

In July 2019, Ashir told consular officials that he’d lost his passport and asked what steps he needed to take to remain legal in Turkiye.

In Turkiye, people without a valid passport (if they do not have a residence permit or a stateless person card) cannot legally rent property, enroll in utility services, access healthcare, enroll their children in schools, open or use a bank account, purchase a SIM card, or board domestic flights or trains. They cannot obtain birth certificates for newborn children or marriage licenses. Life becomes very difficult, very quickly.

Ashir was told “no one will issue you a passport here” and handed a form. As he recounted to HRW:

It was very general… not related to my problem, required information about my parents, my marital status… do I read Namaz [pray]…. I asked, what will this document do for me? What was the purpose of the form?

Ashir returned to the consulate four more times and each time his request for a passport was refused. In June 2022, the consulate issued him a “Certificate for return to Turkmenistan,” which would enable him only to travel to Turkmenistan via direct flight.

Of the 17 Turkmen citizens in Turkiye that Human Rights Watch interviewed for their report, 11 said they had not returned to Turkmenistan because they feared the authorities would ban them from exiting the country again. Many cited cautionary tales: an uncle or a friend denied the ability to leave the country after returning.

Another Turkmen citizen interviewed by Human Rights Watch, Byashim, hadn’t planned to stay in Turkiye permanently when he traveled to the country with his family in 2018. He wasn’t an “activist” until 2020 when he expressed frustration – in public – regarding Ashgabat’s failure to support Turkmen stranded abroad during the pandemic.

“I demanded that borders be open. We went to the consulate with this demand. We pleaded on YouTube,” he told Human Rights Watch. “We became ‘traitors to the Motherland.’”

Byashim’s 28-year-old son, Dovlet, encountered threats and intimidation when he went to extend his passport.

Byashim told Human Rights Watch:

One time… a consulate’s employee threatened him [Byashim’s son]: “If you return here for your passport, we will beat you up very badly.” The other time he said to my son, “We will break your legs and arms, do not return here, have your father come by.”

I went there three times in August… On August 8 the same employee said to me, “You can come back here 33 times to get your son’s passport” [indicating it would still be futile] ... We gave up on my son’s passport.

Dovlet was eventually given a stamp and QR code extending his passport – in a limited fashion, allowing only for a return to Turkmenistan – but it was after his residence permit in Turkiye had expired, meaning he was already in violation of Turkish law. If he wanted to extend his residence permit, he’d have to leave Turkiye and return, something he would be unable to do easily with the limited extension on his travel documents.

Byashim’s family back in Turkmenistan had warned him not to return. Police had begun making visits to his extended family in Turkmenistan: “[Our] relatives [in Turkmenistan] were harassed. Our relatives begged us to stop doing what we do here [in Turkiye], but we did not do anything wrong!”

Without valid passports, Turkmen in Turkiye become undocumented, and this state infects every facet of their lives: housing, employment, healthcare, education, and marriage. The Turkish authorities do not concern themselves with the reasons a Turkmen’s documents are out of order, only that they are in violation of the law.

Turkmenistan is also in violation of several international legal obligations, not ot mention its own domestic laws. As Human Rights Watch points out, article 24 of Turkmenistan’s Law on Migration states that “A citizen of Turkmenistan cannot be deprived of the right to leave Turkmenistan and enter Turkmenistan.” So much for that.