ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan: Human rights watchdog Amnesty International on Tuesday has expressed concern over what it described as the widespread abuse of human rights in the ex-Soviet republic of Turkmenistan, demanding that world leaders pressure the isolated Central Asian nation to honor agreements meant to secure basic freedoms.

According to Forum 18 News Service, an agency covering religious freedom in the former Soviet republics and Eastern Europe, attempts to curb religious freedom in Turkmenistan continue with at least seven mosques and husseiniyaat demolished in 2004 alone.

“By destroying mosques - as well as a Christian church and Hare Krishna temples, as was done in the past - the Turkmen government is demonstrating its contempt for the rights of believers of different faiths to maintain their own places of worship where they can pray freely in the way they wish to,” Forum 18 News Service had reported in the beginning of 2005.

Amnesty said that civil, political, social, economic and cultural rights have been abused in Turkmenistan, where President Saparmurat Niyazov exercises absolute power. There are no independent political parties and the government controls the news media.

"Civil society activists, political dissidents, members of religious minority groups as well as their families, have been subjected to human rights violations including harassment, arbitrary detention, torture and ill treatment and imprisonment after unfair trials," the group said in a statement. "At least one man has been forcibly confined to a psychiatric hospital solely to punish him for peacefully exercising his right to freedom of expression."

Many dissidents have been forced into exile and authorities have targeted family members left behind to prevent those abroad from speaking out on abuses, Amnesty said. The human rights group also said that torture was widespread and that violations of civil and political rights were not limited to those exercising or wishing to exercise their rights.

It also noted that the country denied a visa to the rapporteur on Turkmenistan for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the continent's top security and rights body.

"Turkmenistan's appalling human rights record is in stark contrast with its commitment to uphold key human rights principles that it made when ratifying a series of important UN human rights treaties and that it is bound to uphold as a member of the OSCE," Amnesty said.

It said: "It is now particularly crucial that the international community press for implementation of its previous resolutions and recommendations in a consistent and principled way."

Niyazov, who uses the title Turkmenbashi (Father of All Turkmen), has created an extensive cult of personality, including naming days and months after himself and his mother. He wrote a philosophy book children must study daily.

The majority Muslim nation of 4.8 million has extensive oil and natural gas reserves. The largely desert nation borders Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Iran and the Caspian Sea.