President Saparmurat Niazov has added public libraries to the long list of things banned in Turkmenistan – a bitter blow to many in the Central Asian republic who say their last window on the world has been slammed shut.Turkmen have grown used to living without opera, ballet, cinemas and even circuses – all forbidden by Niazov – but they say his decision to close all libraries cuts especially deep...
The president said any more libraries are unnecessary as most books that Turkmen need – many written by Niazov himself – should already be in homes, workplaces and schools.
Those include the Niazov-penned Rukhnama – a spiritual treatise that is the basis of the country’s education system - poems written by the president as well biographies of him and his parents. A recent addition to the school curriculum is the “Source of Wisdom”, a book for secondary school students with excerpts in alphabetical order from Niazov’s three greatest poetic works...
Observers worry about the effect this information vacuum is having on Turkmen and warn of mass ignorance of the people, especially among the younger generation who are deprived of the opportunity to learn about the modern world.
Though universities still have libraries, the supplies of books have not been updated for ten years while many works on history, literature and biology have been removed and destroyed.
I think that I used to find stories about Niazov's bizarre edicts kind of surreally funny, but the 'joke' got old awhile ago - this is seriously nauseating. More background from Human Rights Watch here.