Two men who escaped one of the world’s most secretive and repressive states have told AFP how they were tortured, beaten and raped in Turkmenistan for the “crime” of being gay.

When the oil- and gas-rich Central Asian republic makes the headlines, it is usually for the eccentricities of its “National Leader” and “Hero Protector” Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov.

The dentist-turned-autocrat who writes poems about his horse — and whose football team has never lost a game in the local league — is a health freak. So much so that his son Serdar, the president, plans to “eradicate smoking” there by the end of the year.

But behind the monumental statues and the marble city of Arkadag built in Berdymukhamedov’s honour, opponents and minorities are mercilessly persecuted, say Amnesty and Human Rights

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