Bhutan: UN experts highlight situation of political prisoners as press freedom hits a new low

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, UN experts as well as the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention have highlighted the situation of the dozens of political prisoners detained for years in the country. Bhutan’s press freedom ranking has continued to regress due to restrictive defamation laws, restrictions to access information, and a culture of self-censorship.

Association

UN experts raise concerns on political prisoners

On 3rd February 2025, six UN experts sent a communication to the government of Bhutan on 19 political prisoners who have been imprisoned in Bhutanese jails following alleged arbitrary arrests and detention, torture and ill-treatment in detention, and unfair trials with disproportionate punishments for their alleged participation in protests under terrorism and national security offences.

They are among 32 political prisoners who had been arrested, primarily in the 1990s, but up until 2010, after reportedly protesting against the mistreatment of the Nepali-speaking minority in Bhutan.

Some of those convicted in 2008 were charged with terrorism offences under the Bhutan Penal Code. At least 14 are serving life sentences without the possibility of parole, while the remainder are serving terms of between 32 and 43 years.

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

The prisoners, according to the reports of the mandate holders, are held at the Chemgang Prison near Thimpu, and isolated as “political prisoners”. Conditions have been reported as poor, their rights to fair trial have been denied, and ill-treatment and torture of the political prisoners have been reported.

The experts asked the government to provide any additional information or comments on the allegations, to indicate whether the 19 prisoners or any others will be pardoned by the King of Bhutan, and to provide information on the detention conditions of the 19 detainees.

On 18th February 2025, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found the detention of three political prisoners - Birkha Bahadur Chhetri, Kumar Gautam, and Sunman Gurung - to be arbitrary. First, the circumstances of their arrest and incommunicado detention placed them outside the protection of the law, and in two cases amounted to enforced disappearance. The UN group also found breaches of the prisoners’ right to a fair trial, and finally that they were “deprived of their liberty on discriminatory grounds, because of their political opinion and status as members of a linguistic minority.”

Concerns about the political prisoners have been raised by other civil society groups in recent years including Human Rights Watch in a report and by South Asians for Human Rights (SAHR), a regional network of human rights defenders.

There were also calls at the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of Bhutan by the UN Human Rights Council in November 2024, for the government to grant amnesty to all individuals detained for peacefully expressing political views or participating in political activities.

Expression

Press freedom ranking declines further

Bhutan’s press freedom ranking has 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, while defamation suits and a national security law penalising any attempt to create “misunderstanding or hostility between the government and the people” have acted as a restriction on press freedom.

As previously documented, defamation and libel are criminal offences under articles 317 and 320 of the Penal Code. These offences carried a punishment of fines and a maximum of three years of imprisonment.

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, a Nepali-speaking minority whose situation receives very little media coverage.

Results of a 2025 Rapid Assessment of Bhutan’s Media Landscape conducted by the Journalists' Association of Bhutan (JAB) and published in May 2025 show that journalists confront mounting restrictions in their search for public information. While the Constitution guarantees freedom of expression, the lack of a Right to Information law renders that right hollow in practice. This is reinforced by a culture of silence in the civil service, now regulated by rules that penalise engagement with the media. More than 80 percent of journalists admit to self-censorship.