By Michael Steen and Maria Golovnina
The death in a Turkmenistan jail of a journalist working for a United States-funded radio station marks a low in the Central Asian state's appalling human rights record, media freedom campaigners said on Tuesday.
The Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said the ex-Soviet state ranked with North Korea and Eritrea as one of the worst suppressors of free expression.
RSF released its 2006 Worldwide Press Freedom Index on Tuesday, surveying censorship, intimidation and violence against journalists around the world.
'Extreme violence against those who dare to criticise' Ogulsapar Muradova, 58, worked for Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe and was reported dead by her relatives in September. She had been sentenced to six years in jail for possessing arms, a charge her supporters said was fabricated.
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RSF said her "torture death" showed "the country's leader, 'President-for-Life' Separmurad Nyazov, is willing to use extreme violence against those who dare to criticise him".
Turkmenistan fell two places to 167 in RSF's survey of 168 states. The country, Central Asia's top gas exporter, scored 136 when the list was compiled for the first time in 2002.
Niyazov, 66, calls himself Turkmenbashi (Father of all Turkmen) The Great and long ago muzzled independent local media, shut down many libraries, closed the door to many foreign media and banned imports of international publications.
But rights activists said Muradova's death was a shocking escalation in the crackdown on dissent. Her son found a wound to her head when her body was released from prison, human rights activists said.
Arbitrary detention and arrest The UN human rights agency has called for an inquiry into her death but there has been no public comment from Niyazov or his government.
"Your government routinely silences those who speak out about the widespread human rights violations in your country," a coalition of human rights groups including Amnesty International wrote in an open letter to Niyazov in July.
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