(Read full article on Turkmen.news)

In the summer of 2020, a 48-year-old YouTube blogger, Murat Redzhepbayevich Ovezov, was sentenced to five years in prison in Turkmenistan for writing the poem “Bitter Truth” about coronavirus and quarantine. Ovezov was convicted under Article 228 of the Criminal Code of Turkmenistan “Fraud”, but sources in turkmen.news in the Dashoguz velayat reported that his speeches on YouTube were the real reason for the initiation of the case.  

A resident of the Gubadag region of the Dashoguz velayat, Ovezov, registered on YouTube in 2017, but only began to actively upload videos in 2020. Some of the videos are related to attempts to make money: Ovezov began to cooperate with APL, which sells cosmetics and dietary supplements through network marketing. But in other posts, the blogger made statements that were too bold by the standards of Turkmenistan.

So, in his very first video of June 12, 2020, Murat spoke about the situation with the pandemic and the closure of borders.