The President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov took a rather embarrassing fall off his horse Berkarar ("The Powerful") just after winning an annual horse race in Ashgabat last Sunday.
State media in the former Soviet satellite state have been conspicuously silent on the fall, Agence France-Presse reports:
Turkmenistan's equestrian-mad President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov suffered a spectacular fall from his horse after a race, according to Internet videos, but state media in the isolated ex-Soviet state maintained a rigid silence on the incident.
[...]
Government newspaper Neutral Turkmenistan devoted four pages to his victory, with six giant pictures of the president in national costume.
But there was no mention of the president's potentially serious mishap in the press or on television. The race was shown on state television, but the footage cuts abruptly just after the finish.
In conjunction with state media ignoring President Berdymukhamedov's fall, Turkmen government officials have been scrambling to confiscate all footage of the mishap:
[...] News websites close to the exiled Turkmen opposition said the incident had caused huge concern in Ashgabat, with officials scrambling to prevent more footage leaving the country.
The Gundogar news site said that officials at Ashgabat's international airport had been making intensive checks of passengers leaving the country in search of phones, tablets and cameras of footage of the incident.
It quoted sources at the interior ministry as saying several dozen people have already been arrested on suspicion of trying to smuggle out footage.
The humiliating episode was broadcasted prominently on Russian state television.
President Berdymukhamedov appoints all editors in Turkmen media and access to independent news websites is disallowed.
Turkmenistan finished "runner up" in the Committee to Protect Journalists 2012 Top 10 Most Censored Countries ranking.