State employees frequenting the loo for a “number two” in Turkmenistan have reportedly been warned off the popular practice of using government newspapers as “read and wipe” material.

Given that the heavily censored newspapers of the Turkmen regime carry little that could actually be described as news, it’s no surprise that people find uses other than reading for them. Newsprint can come in handy when lining old shoes in the winter, starting fires, wrapping objects and, of course, to the ire of supersensitive officials, when wiping one’s rear.

Perhaps it is the fact the state dailies contain so many photographs of President Serdar Berdimuhamedov and his father, “Leader of the Nation” Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, that is responsible for the zeal being shown by these officials in a crackdown aimed at keeping the hallowed pages out of the khazi, but they have certainly gone in hard.

The authorities are going so far as to force state employees to sign a written declaration pledging to “safeguard the pages in newspapers and magazines featuring photographs” of the ruling family, according to multiple state employees who spoke to RFE/RL’s Turkmen Service after signing the document.

One way of avoiding any accusation of soiling the “unsoilable” might be to steer clear of buying the newspapers in the first place, but it seems that public employees and students are in fact often forced to pay for subscriptions to the publications in question. And its’ not as if there is a great choice at the news stall. The free press is essentially banned in the tightly controlled authoritarian Central Asian country.

A civil servant in Turkmenistan’s western Balkan Province was reported by RFE/RL as saying officials have even said they could go so far as to print QR codes on each page of subscribers’ newspapers, meaning they could later trace suspect pages to individuals.

“Now we’re even afraid to let the children touch the newspapers at home. If a small child tears or ruins the president’s photo and discards it somewhere in the street, we risk losing our jobs,” the state employee was quoted as saying.

Turkmenistan is consistently ranked by media watchdogs, such as Reporters Without Borders (RSF), as one of the worst countries in the world when it comes to press freedom. A ranking on bathroom freedom is awaited.