Turkmenistan President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov got a “happy birthday” present from singer Jennifer Lopez, but she later apologized for singing the song to him.
Lopez said she sang at an event was put on for executives working in Turkmenistan and it “was not a government sponsored event or political in nature,” a representative for the singer told E! News.
“The event was vetted by her representatives, had there been knowledge of human rights issues of any kind, Jennifer would not have attended,” the statement reads.
The Human Rights Foundation criticized Lopez for singing at the event, highlighting Turkmenistan’s human rights abuses and extreme censorship.
Turkmenistan is frequently ranked as one of the worst human rights violators, according to Freedom House, while Transparency International has said the Central Asian nation is one of the most corrupt countries. Reporters Without Borders also ranked the country as the third-worst place for journalists to report.
“Lopez obviously has the right to earn a living performing for the dictator of her choice and his circle of cronies, but her actions utterly destroy the carefully-crafted message she has cultivated with her prior involvement with Amnesty International’s programs in Mexico aimed at curbing violence against women,” said Human Rights Foundation president Thor Halvorssen in a statement.
He added: “What is the next stop on her tour, Syria? The dictator of Kazakhstan’s birthday is July 6, maybe she will also pay him a visit?”
The press freedom in Turkmenistan is so stifling that in May, when Berdymukhamedov fell from a horse during a race, the country reportedly shut down the Internet to prevent the spread of information about it.
AFP reported that Berdymukhamedov won the race and got $11 million in a cash prize. Other reports said that officials at the airport in Ashgabat were making checks to see if people were smuggling out footage of him falling off the horse.
The news agency reported that several dozen people were arrested over the footage.
