In a report by the Washington Post, Lopez performed for Turkmenistan's leader Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow's birthday on June 29. She performed on stage in an elaborate show where she sang her classic pop songs and waved to the man in question. What she did not realize was that the autocratic, post-Soviet Turkmenistan has a horrendous record of human rights violations. Not only does the government silence free transfer of media, religion and travel, but it uses arrests and violence to censor these activities among citizens and journalists. Lopez’s representatives apologized for the misunderstanding they say happened in regard to background research. "Had there been knowledge of human rights...
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