Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow.
You’d be forgiven for thinking my cat just walked over my computer keyboard, but that’s actually the name of the Turkmenistan president.
Turkmenistan is one of the most repressive countries in the world. Berdymukhamedov, his relatives, and their associates control all aspects of public life, and the governmental authorities encroach frequently on private life.
Think George Orwell’s 1984 – forced evictions, people ‘disappearing’, seemingly unprovoked mass arrests and detainments, attacks on activists and so forth.
Recent rumours doing the rounds claimed that Berdimuhamedow was dead after he disappeared from public view for a few weeks.
To be honest I don’t think anyone was too beat up about it.
Over to CNN.
The Central Asian country’s embassy in Russia denied the reports to the Russian state news agency TASS, calling the rumors an “absolute hoax.”
Berdymukhamedov, who regularly stars in state media broadcasts, reappeared on television screens later that month, in a broadcast showing him reviewing pictures of bus shelters.
Then this broadcast happened, supposedly providing more detail on the idiot’s recent activities.
In a 25-minute report, Berdymukhamedov rides a horse, composes music and appears to score three strikes in a bowling game to a round of applause from aides wearing matching tracksuits.
He also seemingly races through the Karakum Desert in a rally car before driving in circles and skidding around the famous Darvaza Crater.
The Darvaza Crater is also called the ‘Gateway to Hell’. Skip ahead to the 22-minute mark for that part, but it’s worth watching all of his pursuits over the last while:
Yeah, that’s all perfectly normal. Nothing to see here.
If you’re wondering why you don’t see more of this weirdo in the news, it’s because foreign media outlets have little access to the country.
Religious and political expression is “brutally punished” by the government and no independent monitoring groups are allowed in the country.
They’re officially at the very bottom of a number of human rights indexes, including the World Press Freedom Index and Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index.
Apparently being a first-class twit is allowed, though, if this video is anything to go on.
[source:cnn]
