CCPR/C/122/D/2252/2013 Government had carried out an autopsy on 12 September 2006. It also reported that the body showed signs of strangulation. Allegedly, the autopsy also found internal bleeding from the liver and left kidney, indicating possible beatings inflicted several days before death. 2.16 The autopsy and its results were never disclosed to the family or made public. The family’s request for an independent autopsy was rejected and the authorities claimed that Ms. Muradova had died of natural causes. Despite the many signs of torture and mistreatment, the Government refused to investigate. Recently, the Government has changed its position on the cause of her death, telling the Committee to Protect Journalists that it was a suicide. 2.17 Despite repeated calls from the international community to investigate her mistreatment and death and to provide redress to her family, the State party has done neither. Instead, it harassed Ms. Muradova’s daughters when they tried to draw international attention to her case. In the 10 to 15 days after Ms. Muradova’s death, her daughters called the author to tell him that they were being harassed and threatened for being in contact with the Turkmenistan Helsinki Foundation. They were taken to the Ministry of National Security, where officials showed them the records of all their telephone conversations. The information was reported in the media; including the fact that their telephones had been wiretapped. 2.18 Once Ms. Muradova’s daughters provided this information to the author, he immediately reported it to organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. The author asked Ms. Muradova’s daughters whether it would be better if they stopped calling him. They said they would find a way to inform him if something happened. They were all dismissed from their jobs; and they could not find other employment because of the pressure from the Ministry of National Security. They were under pressure for about a year. They were summoned to the police station and threatened so as to stop them from talking about their mother’s death. The pressure from the Government subsided to some extent when the author stopped communicating with them through direct channels. 2.19 After Ms. Muradova’s death, her co-defendants were transferred to Akdash prison. They were not able to receive any family visits or even telephone calls for the first two years of their incarceration. Mr. Khadzhiyev and Mr. Amanklyuchev were released in February 2013 after serving their prison terms, but it is not possible for the author to speak with them due to safety concerns. 2.20 The State party’s authorities rendered all domestic remedies unavailable or otherwise ineffective. The authorities threatened and pressured Ms. Muradova’s children not to talk about their mother’s torture and death. The author himself, who does not reside in Turkmenistan, does not have access to the courts in the country. Even if he did, complaining to the court would have posed a danger not only to the author and his family, but also to Ms. Muradova’s children. 2.21 The author’s communication does not constitute an abuse of the right of submission under rule 96 (c) of the Committee’s rules of procedure, since there has not been an “unreasonable delay”.1 Because domestic remedies were not available to the author, he tried other means to seek redress, for example through persistent media campaigns and appeals to United Nations bodies, diplomats and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The present communication has thus been filed as an ongoing campaign to seek justice for Ms. Muradova. In addition, Turkmen officials have recently claimed that some kind of domestic investigation has been conducted.2 The five-year limit should be calculated from the end of this investigation, although the State party’s authorities have not disclosed any additional information regarding this investigation. 2.22 There is a “pervasive system of human rights abuses” in Turkmenistan. The Government represses political dissidents, controls media, mistreats and kills detainees and denies the right to a fair trial. It has been described as one of the “most repressive and 1 2 4 See Klain and Klain v. Czech Republic (CCPR/C/103/D/1847/2008), para. 7.5. The author provides no further information in this regard.