Soltan Achilova

Affiliated media: Journalist

Incident date: November 18, 2023

Attack type:

• Ban on leaving the country

Who attacked: Authorities

Source: Turkmen.News

Location: Turkmenistan, Ashgabat

Additional information:

Soltan Achilova, a Turkmen citizen who won the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders was not allowed out of the country to receive the award. Achilova was supposed to fly to Geneva on November 17. She was accompanied by her daughter Maya Achilova. At the Ashgabat airport, the women were searched for a long time and passed through a scanner several times. Customs officers manually inspected all their luggage, including Soltan Dayza's cane. No reason was found for not releasing the Achilovs. The passport control officers then soaked their passports with wet wipes in front of the women and then told them that the documents were damp and unusable.