National Security Act of Bhutan 1992

The National Security Act of Bhutan 1992 (NSA) is a security statute enacted by the National Assembly of Bhutan on 2 November 1992. It consists of sixteen sections and superseded the treason provisions of the Thrimzhung Chhenmo, the 1957 Supreme Law. The Act criminalises treasonable acts against the Tsa-Wa-Sum (ཙ་བ་གསུམ, "the three roots" — king, country and people) and a range of speech, assembly and association offences described by Human Rights Watch as "vaguely worded" and by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention as inconsistent with international fair-trial standards.^[1]

The Act was passed at the height of the southern Bhutan crisis and the early expulsion of Lhotshampa populations to refugee camps in Nepal. It is the principal charging instrument under which Tek Nath Rizal was sentenced to life imprisonment in December 1993, and under which most members of the cohort of long-term political prisoners held at Chemgang Central Jail and Rabuna remain detained as of 2026.^[2] The English text of the Act is published by the Office of the Attorney General and the National Assembly Secretariat.^[3]

Enactment and political context

Pro-democracy demonstrations erupted across the southern districts of Bhutan in September and October 1990 in protest against the 1985 Citizenship Act and the enforcement of Driglam Namzha in Lhotshampa areas. The Royal Government of Bhutan characterised the protests as an "anti-national" movement and a threat to sovereignty rather than as political dissent. By the time the National Assembly debated the National Security Bill in late 1992, an estimated 80,000 Lhotshampa had already crossed into Nepal and India, and several hundred suspected organisers were in detention.

The Act was framed by the government as a response to subversion and as a codification of pre-existing offences against the Tsa-Wa-Sum doctrine. Critics, including Amnesty International in its 1994 appeal on behalf of Tek Nath Rizal, characterised it as a retroactive legal foundation for prosecutions already under way and as a vehicle for the criminalisation of peaceful political activity by the Nepali-speaking minority.^[4]

The Tsa-Wa-Sum doctrine

The Tsa-Wa-Sum — literally "the three roots" — is the formal Bhutanese constitutional doctrine identifying the king (Druk Gyalpo), the country and the people as a single, indivisible object of allegiance. The doctrine pre-dates the NSA and appears in the Thrimzhung Chhenmo, in royal proclamations, and subsequently in the 2008 Constitution, which makes loyalty to the Tsa-Wa-Sum a fundamental duty of every citizen (Article 8).

Under the NSA, an offence against any one of the three elements is treated as an offence against the whole. In prosecutorial practice, this has allowed criticism of government policy, distribution of pamphlets, contact with exile organisations, and participation in demonstrations to be charged as treason. The doctrine's elasticity is one of the principal grounds on which the Act is criticised by international bodies; the WGAD's Opinion 60/2024 describes the offence definitions as so broad that they criminalise the exercise of rights guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Structure and key provisions

The Act is organised into sixteen sections covering treason, sedition, unlawful assembly, riot, sabotage, espionage, conspiracy and emergency powers.

Treason against the Tsa-Wa-Sum

The opening sections criminalise any act, whether committed within Bhutan or abroad, intended to overthrow or undermine the royal government, or to give "aid and comfort" to enemies of the state. As enacted in 1992, the maximum penalty was death or life imprisonment. Conspiracy to commit treason carries up to ten years' imprisonment.

Speech offences

The Act criminalises speech, writing or other expression that creates or attempts to create "hatred and disaffection" toward the government (up to ten years' imprisonment); "misunderstanding or hostility between Bhutan and friendly countries" (up to five years); or "feelings of enmity or hatred between different religious, racial or language groups" (up to three years). These provisions are the most frequently cited in international critiques and have been used in prosecutions involving the distribution of political pamphlets.

Unlawful assembly and riot

An assembly of five or more persons may be ordered to disperse; failure to disperse carries up to one year's imprisonment. Rioting carries up to two years; rioting while armed with deadly weapons carries up to three years.

Emergency powers

The Act empowers the government to declare a state of emergency over part or all of Bhutan and to suspend ordinary procedural protections for the duration of the emergency.

Trial procedure, counsel and appeal

The Act does not prescribe a self-contained trial procedure; cases are tried in the ordinary courts under the procedural rules then in force. International monitors have documented that NSA prosecutions of political defendants have been conducted in closed proceedings, in many cases without independent defence counsel, and that confessions obtained under torture have been admitted in evidence. Appeal rights exist on paper but, in the documented cases reviewed by Human Rights Watch and the WGAD, have not produced reversals of conviction in any long-term political-prisoner case.^[5]

Capital punishment provision

The death-penalty provisions of the NSA were rendered inoperative when capital punishment was abolished in Bhutan on 20 March 2004 through the new Penal Code, and the prohibition was subsequently entrenched as a fundamental right in Article 7(18) of the 2008 Constitution. The remaining NSA provisions on speech, assembly, sedition and conspiracy were not repealed and remain in force.^[6]

Relationship to the Penal Code 2004 and the 2008 Constitution

The Penal Code of Bhutan 2004 introduced a unified criminal code, including its own treason and sedition provisions, but did not repeal the NSA. From 2004 onwards, prosecutions in security cases have typically been brought under the NSA in conjunction with Penal Code provisions, a practice documented in the Human Rights Watch reporting on the 2008 Communist Party of Bhutan (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist) trials.

Article 7 of the 2008 Constitution guarantees the rights to life, liberty, freedom of speech and freedom from arbitrary detention. Article 21 establishes the judiciary. The Constitution permits "reasonable restrictions" on fundamental rights in the interest of sovereignty, security and unity, and the courts have not, on the public record, struck down or read down any NSA provision on Article 7 grounds. No pre-2008 political conviction is publicly known to have been reviewed or overturned under the constitutional rights framework.

Use against political defendants

Tek Nath Rizal (1993)

Tek Nath Rizal, a former member of the Royal Advisory Council, was arrested by Nepalese authorities in 1989 and extradited to Bhutan. His trial concluded in December 1993 with conviction on charges including treasonable acts against the Tsa-Wa-Sum, attempts to create misunderstanding between Bhutan and friendly countries, and "sowing communal discord". He was sentenced to life imprisonment and held at Chamgang. The WGAD addressed his detention in Opinion 48/1994 and Revised Decision 3/1996. He was released in December 1999 in a royal amnesty.

The 2007–2008 BCP(MLM) trials

In December 2007 a Bhutanese court convicted thirty individuals, after a five-month trial, of membership in or activities linked to the Communist Party of Bhutan (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist). A second wave of detentions in 2008 followed bomb blasts in the run-up to the constitutional transition. The cases were prosecuted under a combination of the NSA and Penal Code provisions; advocacy sources record that defence counsel was not made available to many defendants and that the trials were closed to the public.

Birkha Bahadur Chhetri, Kumar Gautam and Sunman Gurung (2008–present)

The three men were arrested in February 2008 by Royal Bhutan Army personnel after re-entering Bhutan from the refugee camps in Nepal carrying political pamphlets. They were held incommunicado at an army barracks for twenty days, convicted of treason under the NSA, and sentenced to life without parole. They are held at Chemgang. In WGAD Opinion 60/2024, adopted at the Working Group's 101st session in November 2024, the detentions were found arbitrary on four independent grounds, including breach of the right to fair trial and discriminatory targeting on grounds of political opinion and linguistic minority status.^[7]

Other cases

The Global Campaign for the Release of Political Prisoners in Bhutan (GCRPPB) maintains a roster of approximately 32 NSA-convicted long-term detainees as of 2025. Human Rights Watch's January 2026 reporting puts the figure at around 30 after the death in custody of Sha Bahadur Gurung at Chamgang on 15 December 2025. See List of Bhutanese political prisoners.

International critiques

Human Rights Watch has characterised the NSA as "draconian and vaguely worded" in its submissions to the Universal Periodic Review and has called for repeal or substantive amendment. Amnesty International in 1994 designated Tek Nath Rizal a prisoner of conscience and identified the Act's predecessor charges as the basis of his detention; subsequent Amnesty statements have criticised the continued application of the NSA against returnees and refugees.

The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has issued at least three opinions touching on the Act: Opinion 48/1994 and Revised Decision 3/1996 (Rizal), and Opinion 60/2024 (Chhetri, Gautam and Sunman Gurung). The 2024 opinion is the most direct critique, finding that the NSA's offence definitions are so broad as to capture conduct protected under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and calling for the immediate release of the three men.

In April 2025 a joint communication by six UN Special Rapporteurs called on Bhutan to review the NSA and the terrorism provisions of the Penal Code. Bhutan's responses through the four cycles of the Universal Periodic Review (2009, 2014, 2019, 2024) have noted but not accepted recommendations on ICCPR ratification, NSA reform, or the establishment of an independent national human rights institution accredited under the Paris Principles. As of 2026, Bhutan has not ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights or the Convention against Torture.^[8]

Domestic coverage and silences

Coverage of NSA prosecutions in Kuensel and on Bhutan Broadcasting Service has been limited to brief acknowledgements at the time of conviction. No contemporaneous Kuensel or BBS reporting on WGAD Opinion 60/2024, on the joint April 2025 UN communication, or on the 15 December 2025 death of Sha Bahadur Gurung was located in English-language web archives during the preparation of this article. This pattern is consistent with the broader collapse of Bhutanese press freedom — Reporters Without Borders ranked Bhutan 152nd of 180 countries in 2025, down from 33rd in 2022 — and with the documented self-censorship rate of around 84 per cent among Bhutanese journalists. The Royal Government of Bhutan has not, on the public record, replied substantively to WGAD Opinion 60/2024 or to the UN Special Rapporteurs' April 2025 communication.

Status

The National Security Act 1992 remains in force, with its capital punishment provisions superseded by the 2004 Penal Code and the 2008 Constitution but its remaining provisions intact. No publicly recorded amendment has been made since enactment. The Druk Gyalpo retains the constitutional prerogative of mercy under Article 2(16) of the Constitution; according to Human Rights Watch reporting in January 2026, the King's office has informed political prisoners' families that clemency applications would not be entertained.