Officials in Turkmenistan, an oppressive and secretive former Soviet republic, are endangering its citizens by suppressing information about COVID-19, while claiming to have zero infections despite sharing a border with Iran, a major hotspot of the disease, a watchdog group says.
“Turkmen authorities have lived up to their reputation by adopting this extreme method for limiting all information about the coronavirus,” said Jeanne Cavelier of Reporters Without Borders (RSF), on the organization’s website. RSF claims Turkmen authorities “are avoiding use of the word ‘coronavirus’ as much as possible in order to deter the spread of information about the pandemic.”
