List of Bhutanese Political Prisoners

This article lists individuals reported to be held in Bhutan in connection with peaceful political activity. The Royal Government of Bhutan does not publish data on persons it classifies as convicted of national security or anti-state offences, and independent observers, journalists and humanitarian organisations are not granted access to Bhutanese prisons. As a result, the names below are drawn from reports compiled by international human rights organisations and by the diaspora-led Global Campaign for the Release of Political Prisoners in Bhutan (GCRPPB), working through families of detainees and former prisoners now living in exile or in third countries of resettlement.^[1]

As of January 2026, Human Rights Watch reported that approximately 30 such prisoners remained alive and detained, after the death in custody of Sha Bahadur Gurung on 15 December 2025. The most widely cited list, used in joint advocacy by GCRPPB, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, contains 32 names; the discrepancy reflects deaths in custody and uncertainty over a small number of cases. Most are members of the Lhotshampa (ethnic Nepali Bhutanese) community; a smaller number are Sharchop from eastern Bhutan. The great majority were sentenced under the National Security Act of 1992 or related provisions for offences including treason, "anti-national activities" and "waging war against the state". This article should be read together with the broader Political Prisoners in Bhutan and Bhutan's Political Prisoners entries, which provide historical and political context.^[2]

Sources and methodology

No comprehensive, independently verifiable register of political prisoners in Bhutan exists. The names in this article are drawn from the following overlapping bodies of documentation:

Reports and press statements by Human Rights Watch (HRW), particularly those of March 2023, January 2024, July 2024, March 2025, April 2025, and January 2026.
Amnesty International reporting from 1992 onwards, including the April 2025 statement urging the European Union to press Bhutan on the issue.
The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD), Opinion No. 60/2024, adopted at its 101st session in November 2024, which examined the cases of three named prisoners.
A joint communication (AL BTN 1/2024) from six United Nations Special Rapporteurs and working groups, conveyed to the Government of Bhutan in February 2025 and made public in April 2025, addressing the cases of 19 named prisoners.
Lists maintained and published by the Global Campaign for the Release of Political Prisoners in Bhutan (GCRPPB), a diaspora advocacy organisation founded in 2019 and based in the Netherlands.
Reporting in the diaspora press, particularly Bhutan News Network, The Bhutan Watch and Nepali outlets such as the Kathmandu Post.

Bhutanese state media — including Kuensel and the Bhutan Broadcasting Service — have not reported substantively on these individuals or on the international campaign for their release. The Royal Government of Bhutan has, in successive Universal Periodic Review submissions, maintained that those imprisoned were convicted of criminal offences against national security through the ordinary courts and rejected the characterisation of any current detainee as a political prisoner. It has not, however, published the names, charges or sentences of those held, and has not granted access to international monitors. Readers should therefore treat the list below as a best-available reconstruction rather than an authoritative roster. Spellings of names vary between sources; alternate transliterations are noted where known.^[3]

Named prisoners

The following 32 individuals appear on the list circulated by GCRPPB and cited in joint advocacy by HRW and Amnesty International in 2025. Sha Bahadur Gurung is included for completeness; he died in custody on 15 December 2025 (see below). Detailed biographical information for most names is not publicly available. Where individual arrest dates, charges or sentence lengths are not documented in independent sources, the entry is left blank rather than reconstructed.

Rinzin Wangdi
Tenzin Gawa Zangpo
Kinley Gyeltshen
Kinley Penjor
Ram Lal Rawat
Bishnu Rai
Madhulal Budathoki
M.B. Bhujel
Lok Bahadur Ghale (also Ghaley)
Sha Bahadur Gurung — died in custody, 15 December 2025
Kumar Rai
Prem Rai
Ganga Ram Dhakal
Bhakta Bahadur Rai
Moni Kumar Pradhan
Prakash Mongar
Harka Bahadur Gurung
Dambar Singh Pulami
Yogi Prasad Subba
Kumar Gautam
Hasta Bahadur Rai
Suk Man Mongar (also Sukman, Sunman)
Birkha Bahadur Chhetri
Govinda Niroula
Nandalal Basnet
Om Nath Adhikari (also Omnath Adhikari)
Khagendra Khanal
Aita Raj Rai
San Man Gurung
Chatur Man Tamang (also Chaturman Tamang)
Chandra Raj Rai
Bhim Bahadur Rai

Of the 32, advocacy groups have reported that the majority are serving life sentences without parole, with the remainder serving fixed terms ranging from approximately 34 years upwards. Human Rights Watch has stated that 24 of the 32 are serving life without parole and that 27 are Lhotshampa and five Sharchop, though these figures should be treated as approximate.^[2]

Cases examined by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention

In Opinion No. 60/2024, adopted at its 101st session in November 2024 and made public in 2025, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention examined three of the cases in detail:

Birkha Bahadur Chhetri
Kumar Gautam
Sunman Gurung (also rendered as Suk Man Mongar in some lists; sources differ)

According to the Working Group, the three men had become refugees in Nepal after the events of 1990, returned to Bhutan in 2008, and were arrested after distributing political pamphlets associated with exile-based pro-democracy groups. They were charged with treason under the National Security Act and sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. The Working Group found that their detention was arbitrary on four separate grounds, including discriminatory targeting on the basis of political opinion and linguistic minority status, and that in two of the three cases the period of incommunicado detention amounted to enforced disappearance under international law. The Working Group called for their immediate release and for compensation.^[4]

Joint UN Special Procedures communication

On 3 February 2025, six UN Special Procedures mandate holders sent a joint communication (AL BTN 1/2024) to the Government of Bhutan addressing the situation of 19 named political prisoners. The signatories included the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, the Special Rapporteur on minority issues, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, and the Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers. The communication, published by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in April 2025, expressed concern about arbitrary arrest, torture and ill-treatment, unfair trials and conditions of detention, and called on Bhutan to release those concerned and to allow independent monitoring of its prisons.^[3]

Places of detention

According to information compiled by HRW and GCRPPB from former prisoners and families:

Chamgang Central Jail (also rendered Chemgang), located in the hills above Thimphu, holds the larger group of named political prisoners, reportedly in a separate wing for those classified as "anti-nationals". HRW reported in January 2026 that approximately 21 of the named prisoners were held there.
Rabuna Prison, in Wangdue Phodrang district, is a military facility that has held a smaller group, reported by HRW in January 2026 to consist of seven men, several of them former soldiers of the Royal Bhutan Army arrested around 1990 in connection with protests by the Nepali-speaking minority. Sha Bahadur Gurung spent most of his 35 years of detention at Rabuna before being transferred to Chamgang shortly before his death.

Conditions at both facilities are reported by HRW, by former prisoners interviewed in 2023, and by the families with whom GCRPPB is in contact, to include inadequate food and bedding, insufficient clothing for Bhutan's cold winters, limited access to medical care (with reports that basic medicines such as paracetamol are provided only to prisoners who can pay), prolonged periods without family visits, and restrictions on correspondence. Several prisoners are reported to be in serious ill health. These accounts cannot be independently verified inside Bhutan.^[1]

Death of Sha Bahadur Gurung

Main article: Sha Bahadur Gurung

Sha Bahadur Gurung, originally from Chirang district, was a serving member of the Royal Bhutan Army when he was arrested in 1990 in connection with protests by the Nepali-speaking minority. He was sentenced to life imprisonment and held primarily at Rabuna. According to GCRPPB, he died on 15 December 2025 at Chamgang Central Jail, two days before Bhutan's National Day, after reportedly being found unconscious in his cell on the morning of 15 December. Family members, speaking through GCRPPB, described decades of physical and psychological abuse during his imprisonment and called for an independent external inquiry into his death; the Royal Government has not made a public statement of its own. At the time of his death, Gurung had been imprisoned for approximately 35 years, making him one of the longest-serving political prisoners in Asia.^[5]

Releases since 2010

A small number of named political prisoners have been released since 2010, in most cases through royal amnesty granted to mark national occasions rather than through judicial review. The most widely reported group release took place on 6 April 2022, when six prisoners were granted amnesty by King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck and reunited with their families:

Tshewang Rinzin, a former dungpa (sub-divisional officer), arrested 31 July 1998 and serving life imprisonment for alleged involvement with an exile-based political party.
Kharka Bahadur Mongar, arrested 9 February 2008, serving 15 years.
Bala Ram Chamling, arrested 10 February 2008, serving 15 years.
Nayendra Prasad Kharel, arrested 4 February 2008, serving 15 years.
Ghana Shyam Gurung, arrested 2 February 2008, serving 15 years.
Ram Bahadur Khulal, arrested 9 February 2008, serving 15 years.

Additional individual releases on completion of sentence have been reported by GCRPPB and the diaspora press in subsequent years. HRW noted in March 2025 that, of approximately 37 individuals identified by advocacy organisations as political prisoners, five had been released after serving lengthy sentences. The released prisoners are generally not permitted to engage in political activity and several have left Bhutan to join family members in third countries.^[6]

Advocacy and the GCRPPB

The principal advocacy organisation pressing for the release of those named in this article is the Global Campaign for the Release of Political Prisoners in Bhutan (GCRPPB), founded in 2019 by Ram Karki, a former Lhotshampa refugee who obtained political asylum in the Netherlands in 2002. The organisation is based in The Hague and operates through volunteers in Europe, North America, Australia and the resettlement countries of the Bhutanese refugee diaspora. It maintains contact with families of detainees, publishes periodic appeals, lobbies the European Union and individual European governments, and submits material to the UN Human Rights Council and to the Universal Periodic Review process. Karki himself has addressed the European Parliament, the Dutch Parliament and the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on the issue. GCRPPB's documentation has been cited extensively by HRW and Amnesty International.^[7]

International response

Beyond the UN bodies discussed above, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have issued repeated public statements since 2023 calling for the release of all named prisoners, beginning with HRW's March 2023 statement and continuing through January and July 2024, March and April 2025, and January 2026. In April 2025, both organisations urged the European Union to raise the issue at the 13th EU–Bhutan Annual Consultations. In January 2026, HRW published two further statements: one documenting illness and death in custody, and a second timed to a visit by Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay to Brussels, in which it urged European investors and the European Commissioner for International Partnerships, Jozef Síkela, to make any further engagement with Bhutan conditional on movement on the prisoner issue. The United States Department of State annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices have also referred to long-term political detainees in their Bhutan chapters.^[8]

Limitations of this list

Several caveats apply to the information in this article:

The Royal Government of Bhutan has not confirmed or denied the names on the list, has not published its own data on those held under national security provisions, and disputes the characterisation of these individuals as political prisoners.
Information on individual prisoners' current health, living conditions and whereabouts depends on intermittent contact between families and detainees, and is therefore incomplete and sometimes contradictory.
Spellings and personal details vary between sources; the same individual may appear under different transliterations.
The list does not capture individuals who may have been arrested or convicted on national security grounds but whose names have not reached international advocacy organisations.
It also does not address the larger historical question of the several hundred Lhotshampa and Sharchop detainees who passed through Bhutanese custody during the 1990s and were released, expelled or who died before 2010.

Readers seeking historical and political context should consult the related articles Political Prisoners in Bhutan, Tek Nath Rizal, Bhutanese refugee crisis and Lhotshampa.