Please join the International Labor Rights Forum, the Cotton Campaign, and Ruslan Myatiev, editor and founder of Alternative Turkmenistan News, in delivering a petition with over 100,000 signatures from people around the world to the Embassy of Turkmenistan, demanding the immediate release of Gaspar Matalaev. Gaspar monitored and reported on the systematic use of forced adult and child labor in Turkmenistan during cotton harvesting, and he was arrested in October 2016, just two days after Alternative Turkmenistan News published his extensive report on Turkmenistan’s forced labor practices.

While in detention, Gaspar has been tortured by electric shock and held incommunicado. Throughout the investigation and trial, he did not have access to effective legal representation or to key files, information, and documents. The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions ruled Gaspar’s deprivation of liberty as arbitrary. Further, the Working Group notes, “the appropriate remedy would be to release Mr. Matalaev immediately and accord him an enforceable right to compensation and other reparations, in accordance with international law.”