According to 1998's recoded documentation, Turkmenistan has been under a dictatorship rule since the brake from the former Soviet Union. Under the raining dictator, Saparmurat Niyazov, the citezens are neglectid of every civil and political right. There is no freedom of assembly, no opportunity for public debate and no political opportunities. Not to mention the intimidating authority existence of a Soviet-style, secret police. Turkmenistan is also one of the poorest of the former Soviet republics, due to the bad condition that it's people are subjected to. Up until the U.S. Government intervened using force, President Niyazov had held many high-profiled polical prisoners. Among these prisoners, there was Khaja-Makhamendov, a leader of the banned Party of Democratic Development of Turkmenistan. Khaja-Makhamendov was held in incarceration since Febuary of 1996 in a psychiatric hospital on medically unjustifable grounds. Six of the eight members of the Party of Democratic Development of Turkmenistan, also known as the "Ashgabat Eight", were also released in April. Niyazov's sole intentions as leader of this nation were to crack down on political and religious dissidents, to restrict freedom of the press, protest, and to eliminate all forms of democracy. In August, the police stopped 200 women from entering the capital where they intended to make their complaints directly to Niyazov. In trukmenistan there are only 2 religions aceptable and legal, Sunni Islam and Russian Orthodoxy however; the police have halted their raids on privately house-held prayer meetings. Niyazov also called for three-generation "background checks" to determine potential university students' "moral character" before they are admitted to study. Abolished his country's World Languages University, ordered that the entire printing of a new Turkmen history textbook be burned, and ordered that foreign languages should no longer be taught in schools.