27 April 2015

Turkmenistan's War on Satellite Dishes


In a press release Friday, Human Rights Watchcondemned what it called Turkmenistan’s “war on satellite dishes.” Recently, the Turkmen government revived its longtime battle for complete information control:

At the end of March, 2015, local housing authorities in the capital, Ashgabat, and its suburbs started ordering residents of multistory apartment buildings to take down their satellite dishes, citing simply an “order from above” that allegedly stated the dishes ruined the view of the city. Authorities told residents they could instead get cable television packages through the government or state satellite antennae.

Turkmenistan maintains a neutrality policy and opts out of participation in most regional endeavors, HRW calls it “one of the most closed and repressive countries in the world.”

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