Photo: hronikatm.com
In the village of Gara Oba in Turkmenistan’s Mary Province, police detained a man for filming kindergarten teachers and other childcare staff weeding a cotton field, according to a report by Chronicles of Turkmenistan.
The incident occurred on May 20. The workers had been brought in from the city to work in the fields. After the man was taken away by law enforcement, the head of the local agricultural association arranged a bus to send the childcare workers back to the city.
According to the outlet’s sources, the man was held at a police station for several hours and questioned by an officer from the Ministry of National Security. The investigator asked why he was filming and where he intended to send the footage.
Eventually, the man was forced to submit a written explanation. His phone was confiscated for inspection and later returned, and he was released.
Meanwhile, police instructed agricultural association leaders to ensure that no one films public sector employees who are sent from urban areas to work in cotton fields.
The 20-hectare field where the childcare workers were laboring is officially registered under the name of a security guard from the local prosecutor’s office. He reportedly has no connection to agriculture and does not even live in the village. Residents of Gara Oba have repeatedly voiced frustration over agricultural land being leased to outsiders while locals themselves struggle to obtain plots.
Since the public workers were sent back to the city, no one has tended the field, which is now becoming overgrown with weeds. The farm’s management offered local villagers 15 manats (about $4 at the official exchange rate and around $1 on the black market) to weed each row, but they refused. Residents say they are unwilling to work land that has been handed over to outsiders.
