President Saparmurat Niyazov, president of Turkmenistan, is a fucking crazy lying dictator
We don't get a lot of fanmail here at the Newswire, so when we do, we make that extra effort to reach out to our active audience. So, upon receiving the following un-signed missive:
i will fuck you all if i hear something like that
This message of tolerance moves me to help spread the good word about President Saparmurat Niyazov, known to his cowering countrymen as "Turkmenbashi", or "Father of Turkmenistan". You know, a father with red-rimmed, glittering eyes, his foot on your neck and his belt in his hand.
Forum 18 | TURKMENISTAN: Religious freedom survey, October 2005
Niyazov's rule is characterised by a grotesque cult of personality, with ever-present statues and portraits. Works published in his name – especially the two volume ideological book, the Ruhnama (Book of the Soul), which officials have likened to the Koran or the Bible – are compulsorily imposed on schools and the wider public. Russian Orthodox priests and Sunni Muslim imams are forced to quote approvingly from it in sermons and display it prominently in places of worship. One Ashgabad mosque has a dedicated Ruhnama room. The personality cult includes a massive mosque built at taxpayers' expense in the president's home village of Kipchak, in southern central Turkmenistan, decorated with quotations from the Ruhnama, a gold statue in Ashgabad that revolves to follow the sun and a monument to the Ruhnama.
The government-enforced cult of Niyazov's personality was stepped up at the beginning of the year, with Muslims facing mounting pressure to venerate the Ruhnama and local officials insisting that Russian Orthodox churches must have a minimum of two copies of it in parish libraries. Also important in the President's cult are his books of poetry, and Muslim clerics were told in February 2005 that "it was a priority task for clergymen to disseminate the lofty ideas in our great leader's sacred books on the duties of parents and children".
The oath of loyalty, which is printed at the top of daily newspapers, reads in translation: "Turkmenistan, you are always with me in my thoughts and in my heart. For the slightest evil against you let my hand be cut off. For the slightest slander about you let my tongue be cut off. At the moment of my betrayal of my motherland, of her sacred banner, of Saparmurat Turkmenbashy [Father of the Turkmens] the Great [i.e. President Saparmurat Niyazov], let my breath stop."
After the adoption in July 2002 of the law on guarantees of the rights of the child, the unregistered Baptist Church complained bitterly about Article 24 part 2 which declared: "Parents or the legal representatives of the child are obliged . . . to bring him up in a spirit of humanism and the unshakeable spiritual values embodied in the holy Ruhnama." Pointing out that officials are promoting the Ruhnama as "the last word of God to the Turkmen people", the Baptists declared: "In practice this law is a direct infringement on the freedom of conscience of citizens professing faith in Jesus Christ or another faith not recognised by the state."
Let the fucking commence!!
More insanity --->
More good news: wikipedia.org | Turkmenistan
The education system indoctrinates young Turkmen to love Niyazov, with his works and speeches making up most of their textbooks' content. The primary text is a national epic written by Niyazov, the Ruhnama or Book of the Soul. This book, a mixture of revisionist history and moral guidelines, is intended as the "spiritual guidance of the nation" and the basis of the nation's arts and literature. With Soviet-era textbooks banned without being replaced by new publications, libraries are left with little more than Niyazov's works. In 2004, the dictator ordered the closure of all rural libraries on the grounds that he thought that village Turkmen do not read. In Niyazov's home village of Kipchak, a complex is being built to the memory of his mother, including a mosque (est. at $100 million) conceived as a symbol of the rebirth of the Turkmen people. The walls of this edifice will display precepts from the Ruhnama along with Qur'an suras.
Niyazov's other efforts to transform Turkmen culture include introducing a new Turkmen alphabet based on the Latin alphabet to replace Cyrillic, defining the stages of life, and renaming the days and months after national heroes and symbols (as they were presented in Ruhnama).
Presidential decrees
As President-for-Life of Turkmenistan, Niyazov has issued many unusual decrees, such as:
- banning news readers from wearing make-up as Niyazov had difficulty telling male and female readers apart
- banning ballet and opera, describing them as "unnecessary"
- banning public smoking in 1997 when Niyazov quit smoking after major heart surgery
- banning lip syncing when performing songs
- in 2001, forbidding young men to wear long hair or beards
- ordering that young people not be permitted to get gold tooth caps or gold teeth, suggesting instead that they chew on bones to preserve their teeth.
- in August 2005, banning recorded music on television, in public places, and at weddings in order to protect "true culture, including the musical and singing traditions of the Turkmen people"
- closing nearly all public libraries and many hospitals outside the capital
Here's the kicker: Our correspondent, the one who'd like to fuck us? Dave-o traced his IP address to Ankara, Turkey.