Jennifer Lopez to Perform at Lavish Birthday Party for Brutal Dictator
Jenny from "the block" will perform tonight at the birthday celebration of Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, leader of Turkmenistan, which Human Rights Watch has called "one of the world's most repressive countries."
J.lo is the first Western star in a long time to visit the former Soviet republic, which imprisons journalists and human rights activists.
Lopez's choreographer, J.R. Taylor, wondered where all his Turkmen Twitter followers were:
The Turkmenistan Breeze feels amazing at night Kidz! I wonder were all my Turkmenistan followers are!? Hit me up!
They probably weren't at the $2 billion Caspian Sea resort where Berdymukhamedov will celebrate his 56th birthday.
The China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), which completed a pipeline from Turkmenistan to China in 2009, sponsored J. Lo's tribute to the leader of a state where there's currently an "unrelenting crackdown on independent civil society activism and freedom of expression," according to HRW.
Update: As commenter Sir Hallfast points out, Twitter is banned in Turkmenistan. So where are your Turkmen followers, J.R. Taylor? Not in Turkmenistan.