Civic space in Bhutan is rated as ‘obstructed’ by the CIVICUS Monitor. There continue to be concerns about media independence, access to information and the chilling effect of defamation laws on journalists and critics. Further, there are political prisoners from the 1990s convicted under the draconian and vaguely-worded 1992 National Security Act (NSA) who are serving life sentences. Bhutan has yet to ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights or to establish an independent national human rights institution.
In recent months, a political prisoner died in custody, while journalists continue to face restrictions in accessing information.
Association
Political prisoner dies in custody
#Bhutan’s political prisoners face illness, mistreatment, & decades-long sentences in harsh conditions. The recent death of Sha Bahadur Gurung exposes the suffering that the government refuses to acknowledge.
— Human Rights Watch (@hrw) January 20, 2026
Read how the suffering of Bhutan’s political prisoners can be ended:… pic.twitter.com/gTmXo4uNYZ
On 15th December 2025, 65-year-old prisoner Sha Bahadur Gurung died at Chamjang Central Jail in Thimphu. Gurung was serving a life sentence solely for his participation in peaceful pro-democracy demonstrations.
According to Human Rights Watch, Gurung was arrested in 1990 while he was a member of the Royal Bhutan Army and accused of attending protests demanding rights for his minority Nepali-speaking community. He was allegedly tortured, denied proper legal counsel, and sentenced to life imprisonment with no possibility of parole. He spent the last 35 years of his life in the notoriously harsh Rabuna military prison. Gurung died while undergoing treatment for an eye condition.
There are currently 30 known political prisoners in the country. Seven of them, like Gurung, were soldiers from the Nepali-speaking community and were arrested around 1990 for allegedly supporting protests. They have been locked up in Rabuna ever since. Another 21 are being in held in Chemgang prison near the capital, Thimphu, in a special wing reserved for “anti-nationals.” Most of these prisoners are serving life sentences and some have been detained for decades.
The prisoners are being kept in dire conditions, with scant rations and insufficient clothes or bedding for Bhutan’s cold winters. Human Rights Watch was told that all of the prisoners are in poor health and several are severely ill. Simple medicines, such as paracetamol, are only provided to those who can pay for it.
According to the UN experts, a vast majority of this group - 17 political prisoners - are from the Lhotshampa community, “a group descended from Nepali settlers to Bhutan over many generations and who predominantly live in the south of Bhutan, speak the Nepali language, and practise Hinduism”, in contrast to the Bhutanese Buddhist majority. From the late 1980s, the Lhotshampas were allegedly discriminated against by the Bhutanese Government in relation to citizenship rights; minority cultural, language and religious rights; and rights to freedom of expression, assembly and association, and political participation, particularly in connection with pro-democracy demonstrations and human rights activism.
Expression
Journalists face growing information blockades
According to a news report in December 2025, officials in Bhutan appear to have cultivated a habit of avoiding the media and withholding information, leaving journalists with few avenues for access. The resulting silence is straining an already fragile media landscape, pushing it closer to collapse.
Bhutan has no law that guarantees the right to information. The Bhutan Media Foundation revealed that two-thirds of journalists surveyed said authorities often reject their requests for information or stall them with delays.
Chencho Dema, a journalist with Kuensel daily, said that reporters now have to go through designated media spokespersons in most government offices to access information.
Ministries require journalists to submit written questions and wait for responses that can take up to six months, under Standard Operating Procedures based on Thimphu Thromde’s 2018 model, as noted by the Journalists’ Association of Bhutan (JAB) in a paper published in July 2025.
Tshering Namgay, a former journalist with Kuensel, said that he was often driven by the urge to gather information that could turn his article into headline news. However, he said many of those stories had to be abandoned midway because they remained incomplete when newsmakers either refused to share information or responded after an unreasonably long delay.
As previously documented, Bhutan’s press freedom ranking plunged to its lowest level in decades, according to the World Press Freedom Index released in May 2025 by Reporters Without Borders (RSF). The country is now ranked 152nd out of 180 countries and territories, a five-place drop from its 147th position in 2024, and a staggering fall from 33rd place in 2022.
According to RSF, journalists report difficulties getting access to state-held and governmental information. Defamation and libel are criminal offences under articles 317 and 320 of the Penal Code. RSF said that many journalists avoid covering sensitive issues, while foreign journalists visiting Bhutan are not permitted to conduct independent reporting in the southern districts, which were previously dominated by the Lhotshampa, whose situation receives very little media coverage.