7. Turkmenistan
President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, who is regularly re-elected with a 98% of the vote, seems determined to keep his post unchallenged for the rest of his life. Father Protector, as he likes to be called, and his regime have effectively cut Turkmenistan off from the world and by intimidation and harassment, closed every news outlet not sympathetic to them. Those few journalists in exile who use the Internet are finding that passing through the government’s firewalls increasingly difficult. The last source of news citizens of Turkmenistan have are satellite dishes and the government is moving to remove those as well.
