You Have To Take an Oath By Qur’an to Get Internet In This Country

Turkmenistan, which is neighboring in Central Asia to Iran and Afghanistan, has tightened its grip on the use of the Internet by its citizens. It has imposed a number of strict restrictions on the use of private home Internet networks and has come up with an effective way to force citizens not to use VPNs. To avoid visiting restricted websites.

Turkmenistan's way to restrict its citizens' use of the Internet

Many internet users across the country indicated that the government forces everyone who requests internet service at home, to put his hand on the Holy Qur’an, and swear when registering his request, not to use the VPN application that allows access to prohibited websites during registration to access the Internet on level of their homes.

Internet use in Turkmenistan

Internet access in Turkmenistan is also slow and subject to censorship, with Turkmenistan ranked last in a global index of the speed of Internet connections, with many online resources being arbitrarily banned in the country.

At the same time, authorities intensified their efforts to prevent residents from using censorship circumvention tools (VPNs) to access blocked resources, such as independent news sites covering Turkmenistan and critical government groups on social media platforms.

However, there were major failures of VPN service in March 2021, and reports spread of internet users being summoned, interrogated and intimidated by security forces because they used VPNs to access online content critical of the authorities.