Turkmenistan Library Ban Is Protested

By Lynn Blumenstein -- Library Journal, 06/01/2005

The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) has condemned the decision by Turkmenistan president Saparmurat Niazov to ban public libraries in the former Soviet republic, a situation first highlighted by the London-based Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR).

The closure of libraries is part of a series of intellectual freedom violations, IFLA said, that include curbs on Internet access, bans on imported literature and newspapers, and requirements that state bookshops sell only books that support the president's ideology. Many works on history, literature, and biology have been destroyed. According to IWPR, only the national library survives, so, as Niazov has said, it can preserve new literature in the Turkmen language as well as historical texts.