The Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan has an international reputation of being “the last Shangri-La,” a place where authorities promote a principle of “Gross National Happiness” for the people.
Shame about all the political prisoners, then. And the torture.
When you cut through the hype and get to the reality, Bhutan is a country where dozens of people have been wrongfully convicted and rot in prison for ages.
While the total number of political prisoners in Bhutan remains unknown, we’ve documented 37 of them in a new report. They include peaceful political activists, anti-discrimination campaigners, and others convicted in unfair trials for a range of alleged national security offenses.
All are long-term political prisoners, first detained between 1990 and 2010. At least 24 are serving life sentences without possibility of parole, while the rest are serving terms of between 15 and 43 years.
The vast majority of this group – 32 prisoners – belong to Bhutan’s Nepali-speaking Lhotshampa (“Southerner”) community, which has faced decades of discrimination and abuse from the Bhutanese government.
In the early 1990s, more than 90,000 Lhotshampas became refugees in Nepal, following a crisis precipitated by discriminatory laws, disputed citizenship regulations, and widespread abuses by Bhutan’s security forces. Most have been resettled in the United States, Canada, and Australia.
The remaining five prisoners belong to the Sharchop (“Easterner”) community. Four men and a woman are imprisoned for alleged connections to a banned political party, the Druk National Congress, which campaigned for parliamentary democracy and human rights.
For all Bhutan’s political prisoners, the prison conditions are poor. Most of are held separately from other prisoners. They’re denied regular communication with families, and many are suffering physical or mental health ailments.
Former and current prisoners, and relatives of prisoners, say authorities have severely tortured detainees both to extract confessions and to punish them.
It’s all very far from the country’s mountain paradise image.
