Kurbanbibi Atajanova. Photo: social media
According to the Turkmen Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, Kurbanbibi Atajanova, 78, who served as prosecutor general of Turkmenistan from April 1997 to April 2006, died in September at the Dashoguz women’s colony.
Kurbanbibi Sengrenovna Atajanova was born in 1947 in the city of Tejen. After receiving a law degree, she rose from district prosecutor’s assistant to the country’s prosecutor general. In April 1997, President Saparmurat Niyazov appointed her to the republic’s highest prosecutorial post.
During her tenure, Atajanova turned the prosecutor’s office into a punitive institution. Enjoying the absolute trust of Turkmenbashi, she oversaw sweeping repressions, which human rights defenders compared to the persecutions under Yezhov and Beria. The crackdown was especially brutal after the alleged assassination attempt on Niyazov in November 2002, when hundreds of people were arrested.
On April 24, 2006, however, Atajanova herself was arrested during a cabinet meeting. She was accused of corruption, with investigators seizing 13 houses, a brick factory, a mill, a fleet of cars, more than six million dollars, and other assets. She was stripped of all titles and state awards “for dishonorable misconduct.”
In December 2006, Atajanova and her daughter were transferred to the Dashoguz women’s colony. Ironically, it was the same prison she had inspected shortly before her arrest, praising its conditions as a “resort.” There, she was held in an isolated block for relatives of so-called “enemies of the people.”
The Dashoguz colony is notorious for harsh conditions, including torture, beatings, and forced labor. According to international organizations, it currently holds more than 2,000 women.
