Mansur Mingelov. Photo from the turkmen.news website
Turkmen human rights defender Mansur Mingelov, who is serving a 22-year sentence, has suffered an exacerbation of bone tuberculosis, turkmen.news reports.
According to the publication, Mingelov, who turns 52 at the end of November, has spent several years in the prison hospital MR-B/15. He has been diagnosed with tuberculous arthritis of both knee joints, and the disease has spread to the bone tissue and the spine. He can move only on crutches and with help from others, and in recent weeks he has had difficulty standing and sitting.
In the summer of 2024, a Ministry of Health commission confirmed the diagnosis. It also acknowledged that, although the condition cannot be treated in Turkmenistan, his leg could be saved in a foreign clinic. Mingelov refused to have the leg amputated, and he was threatened with being sent back from the hospital to a strict-regime colony.
In September 2025, his relatives appealed to the Prosecutor General's Office and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, petitioning for his early release on grounds of serious illness. They cited Article 76 of the Criminal Code of Turkmenistan («Release from punishment due to serious illness») and Article 166 of the Criminal Executive Code, which lists «serious illness» in its sixth point.
The defense also relied on a presidential decree of May 11, 2017, which approved the list of diseases that entitle prisoners to release. However, the Department for the Execution of Punishments of the Ministry of Internal Affairs said it had «studied all the evidence» and concluded that the request «does not meet the requirements of the current legislation of Turkmenistan."
Mingelov's diagnosis had previously been made public by Turkmenistan's Permanent Representative to the UN, Vepa Khadzhiev. At the 82nd session of the UN Committee against Torture in Geneva in April 2025, he confirmed that Mingelov had been diagnosed with «tuberculous arthritis of the joints of the left and right knee.» The diplomat noted that national legislation allows courts to release convicts with severe illnesses, but he did not say whether Mingelov's condition qualifies.
Mingelov is a native of Mary Velayat and an ethnic Baloch, known for defending the rights of the Baloch minority. He was first detained in June 2012 on suspicion of drug trafficking but was released two weeks later for lack of evidence of a crime. He suffered a broken leg while in detention.
After his release, Mingelov documented cases of torture and electric shocks used against members of the minority. He sent complaints to the Prosecutor General's Office, the OSCE office and the U.S. Embassy in Ashgabat. Soon afterward he was arrested and sentenced to 22 years in prison on charges that included smuggling and distributing pornography. Human rights organizations consider the case entirely fabricated.
In 2018, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis complicated by osteomyelitis.
International bodies, including the UN Human Rights Committee and the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, have repeatedly called on the Turkmen authorities to release him.
