{"id":426380,"date":"2026-05-01T05:11:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T05:11:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/426380\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T05:11:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T05:11:19","slug":"turkmenistan-cracks-down-on-starlink-users","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/426380\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkmenistan Cracks Down On Starlink Users"},"content":{"rendered":"

Police are scouring rooftops in Turkmenistan for Starlink satellite Internet terminals as residents seek to sidestep sluggish and restricted connections, locals say.<\/p>\n

In the eastern city of Turkmenabat, residents have described searches by teams of local officials and law enforcement.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey come and go straight to the roof,\u201d one Turkmenabat resident told RFE\/RL\u2018s Turkmen Service<\/a> on condition of anonymity. \u201cThey check who has what. If a Starlink system is found, they take the device away,” the local said.<\/p>\n

Some residents allegedly linked to the devices, made by Elon Musk\u2019s SpaceX, are being arrested and held in police stations, sources in the country say.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The center of Turkmenabat, the eastern city where rooftop raids for Starlink terminals are being reported.<\/p>\n

As well as the door-knocking checks from police, a resident of Turkmenabat says that \u201cspies\u201d in teams of telecoms workers, who routinely access apartment rooftops, are also being used to report Starlink terminals.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe technicians have people among them who report what kind of antennas are where,” the local said.<\/p>\n

RFE\/RL\u2019s calls to a Turkmenabat police station seeking comment on the raids went unanswered.<\/p>\n

Independent media that focuses on Turkmenistan say the Starlink raids have been ongoing since mid-April. The inspections \u201chave included searches of residential, office, and commercial buildings,\u201d according to the Turkmen.news<\/a> portal.<\/p>\n

Starlink terminals began appearing in Turkmenistan in late 2025 amid frequent interruptions to Internet that was already among the slowest and most restrictive in the world.<\/p>\n

A local from the northern city of Dashoguz told RFE\/RL\u2019s Turkmen Service <\/a>in November 2025 that, \u201ca small number of wealthy households are joining forces with their neighbors, pooling their money, and buying Starlink equipment from Dubai.\u201d The families, \u201cdeposit the money in a foreign bank and then pay a monthly subscription fee to use it,\u201d the resident explained.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

An apartment covered in satellite television dishes in Mary, Turkmenistan. Since this 2015 photo was taken, Turkmen authorities launched a crackdown on satellite dishes.<\/p>\n

With its Internet speeds of around four megabits per second,<\/a> data that takes a full minute to load in Turkmenistan would be received within a second in countries with fast networks. Starlink download speeds are rated from 100-300 megabits per second depending on the pricing plan, and the satellite Internet is not subject to local censorship.<\/p>\n

Turkmenistan is one of the most closed countries in the world and has heavily restricted and monitored Internet use.<\/p>\n

Ashgabat has previously claimed<\/a> Internet restrictions are to prevent “actions that disrupt social order and propagate terrorism, extremism, ultra-nationalism, and other illegal activities.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Police are scouring rooftops in Turkmenistan for Starlink satellite Internet terminals as residents seek to sidestep sluggish and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":426381,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[778,61,60,82,247,23074,115187],"class_list":["post-426380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-features","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science","tag-space","tag-the-rundown-stories","tag-turkmenistan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=426380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426380\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/426381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=426380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=426380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=426380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}