Sha Bahadur Gurung

Sha Bahadur Gurung (c. 1960 – 15 December 2025) was a Bhutanese political prisoner from Chirang (Tsirang) district who died in custody at Chamgang Central Jail, Thimphu, after approximately 35 years of imprisonment. According to advocacy organisations, he was a serving member of the Royal Bhutan Army when arrested in 1990 in connection with the pro-democracy demonstrations of the Nepali-speaking Lhotshampa minority, and was sentenced to life imprisonment under the legal framework that became the National Security Act 1992. The cause of his death is contested: authorities, as relayed through Human Rights Watch, attributed it to ongoing treatment for an eye condition, while his family, speaking through Amnesty International Nepal, alleged that decades of abuse and a delayed medical response were the proximate causes. No independent post-mortem or judicial inquest has been publicly recorded.

At a glance

Born: circa 1960 (age 65 at death, per HRW and Amnesty Nepal)
Place of origin: Chirang (now Tsirang) district, southern Bhutan
Ethnic background: Lhotshampa (Nepali-speaking Bhutanese)
Arrested: 1990
Charges: Treasonable acts and participation in pro-democracy protests, under provisions later codified in the National Security Act 1992
Sentence: Life imprisonment
Held at: Rabuna Prison (1990 to shortly before death), then Chamgang Central Jail
Died: 15 December 2025 (29 Mangsir 2082 BS)
Time served: approximately 35 years

Background and arrest

Independently corroborated biographical information about Sha Bahadur Gurung is thin. The principal sources for his early life are a January 2026 statement by Human Rights Watch and a December 2025 statement by Amnesty International Nepal, both of which drew on family testimony channelled through the Global Campaign for the Release of Political Prisoners in Bhutan (GCRPPB).^[1]^[2]

According to those accounts, Gurung was born around 1960 in Chirang district and was a serving soldier in the Royal Bhutan Army at the time of his arrest in 1990. He was accused of attending demonstrations that formed part of the wider 1990 protests by Bhutan's Nepali-speaking minority against the Driglam Namzha cultural code and the citizenship measures arising from the 1985 Citizenship Act and the 1988 census. He was tried, convicted of treasonable acts against the Tsa-Wa-Sum (king, country and people), and sentenced to life imprisonment. The original court file is not publicly available; the 1990 arrest year and the Royal Bhutan Army background should be read as advocacy-sourced rather than independently verified.

Detention

For most of his imprisonment, Gurung was held at Rabuna Prison, a military facility in eastern Bhutan that has been used to detain a small group of prisoners drawn from former Royal Bhutan Army personnel of the Nepali-speaking community. Human Rights Watch reported in January 2026 that seven of the political prisoners on the GCRPPB roster were still held at Rabuna at the time of Gurung's death.^[1]

Shortly before his death, Gurung was transferred to Chamgang Central Jail (also rendered Chemgang), the main long-term detention facility above Thimphu where the largest group of named political prisoners is held in a wing reserved for those classified by the authorities as "anti-nationals". The reason for the transfer has not been publicly explained. HRW and other sources have documented conditions at both facilities since the withdrawal of International Committee of the Red Cross visits in 2012, including reduced food rations, inadequate clothing and bedding for Bhutan's cold winters, long waits to see a doctor, and reports that basic medicines such as paracetamol are provided only to prisoners who can pay for them.^[3]

Family members reported through GCRPPB that contact between Gurung and his relatives had been intermittent and tightly restricted throughout his detention, in line with the broader pattern documented by released prisoners and by the joint communication issued by six UN Special Rapporteurs in April 2025. No independent monitoring body has been granted access to Gurung or to the wider political-prisoner caseload since 2012.

Death on 15 December 2025

Gurung died at Chamgang Central Jail on 15 December 2025 (29 Mangsir 2082 BS in the Bikram Sambat calendar), two days before Bhutan's National Day. He was 65 years old.^[2]^[4]

The accounts of his death diverge along source lines, and the divergence is itself part of the public record:

Authorities' account

The Royal Government of Bhutan has issued no public statement on Gurung's death. The only attribution to the authorities comes via Human Rights Watch, which reported in January 2026 that Gurung had been "undergoing treatment for an eye condition" at the time of his death. HRW did not name the originating Bhutanese official or document and the formulation should be read as a summary of an authorities-aligned account rather than as a primary statement.^[1]

Family and Amnesty Nepal account

Family members, speaking through Amnesty International Nepal and GCRPPB, gave a different sequence. They said Gurung had eaten his evening meal on 14 December and gone to sleep without showing visible signs of distress, and that he was found unconscious in his cell on the morning of 15 December. They alleged that prison staff did not respond promptly, that by the time he was taken to a nearby health facility he was already without vital signs, and that "decades of abuse, sustained neglect of his health, and a delay in medical response" were the underlying causes. They described his treatment over 35 years as amounting to "mental and physical torture" and "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment".^[2]

What is and is not established

Three things are independently established: the date and place of death, the approximate length of Gurung's imprisonment, and the absence of an independent inquest. The cause of death has not been independently verified; no post-mortem report, no medical records and no independent autopsy findings have been released by either side. Whether his body was returned to his family, and if so under what conditions, has not been publicly confirmed. The notification timing alleged by his family relates to the morning of 15 December and should not be conflated with any allegation of delay in death notification to relatives.

Domestic and international response

Bhutan's two principal English-language outlets, Kuensel and Bhutan Broadcasting Service, have not published any contemporaneous reporting on Gurung's death in their accessible web archives, either on the day of his death or in the weeks that followed. This silence is consistent with their long-standing non-coverage of the political-prisoner caseload, the WGAD opinions on Bhutan, and the joint April 2025 communication of six UN Special Rapporteurs. It also coincides with a sharp decline in Bhutan's press freedom ranking, from 33rd of 180 in 2022 to 152nd of 180 in 2025.^[5]

Outside Bhutan, the death was reported by Nepal-based outlets including the Kathmandu Post, Nepali Times, Republica and The DMN News, and by exile publications including Bhutan News Network. CIVICUS Monitor entered the case in its global civic-space tracker in December 2025, framing it explicitly as an information-blockade case.

Amnesty International Nepal called on the Royal Government of Bhutan to allow a credible, independent and impartial investigation into the death, to release Gurung's medical records, and to release the remaining political prisoners. GCRPPB issued an open appeal addressed to the United Nations, the European Union and member governments demanding an external probe and the immediate release of the surviving named prisoners. Human Rights Watch, in its January 2026 statement, used Gurung's death to renew calls for the release of all long-term political prisoners and for European investors and the European Commissioner for International Partnerships to make further engagement with Bhutan conditional on movement on the prisoner issue. No United Nations Special Rapporteur has, as of the most recent public record, issued a stand-alone statement specifically on Gurung's death.^[6]

The Royal Government of Bhutan has not, on the public record, addressed any of these demands. Its position on the wider caseload, expressed through its 2024 Universal Periodic Review submission and earlier UPR cycles, is that those held under national security provisions were tried under Bhutanese law for offences against the state, and that the characterisation of them as political prisoners is rejected.

Effect on the political-prisoner roster

At the time of Gurung's death, advocacy organisations were citing variant figures for the total number of political prisoners held in Bhutan. The GCRPPB roster carried 32 names; Human Rights Watch in March 2025 referred to approximately 37 individuals identified by advocacy sources, of whom five had been released. After Gurung's death, Human Rights Watch revised its working figure to "30 known", comprising seven at Rabuna and 21 in the Chamgang anti-national wing, with the balance accounted for by recent releases and by Gurung himself. The death therefore moved the publicly cited count one further step downward, while leaving the underlying disagreement between roster sources unresolved. See List of Bhutanese political prisoners.^[1]

Gurung is not the only detainee whose death has been publicly attributed to conditions in custody. The April 2025 joint communication by six UN Special Rapporteurs noted that lack of medical treatment "may have contributed to the death of two detainees" before that date. Those two unnamed individuals are distinct from Gurung, whose death post-dates the communication by more than seven months. Whether they overlap with any of the names on the GCRPPB roster is not publicly established.

Significance

Gurung's death is the first publicly documented death in custody from the GCRPPB-tracked roster of long-term political prisoners since the international advocacy effort intensified in 2023. With approximately 35 years of detention behind him, he was one of the longest-serving political prisoners in South Asia at the time of his death and, on the figures used by HRW and Amnesty, the longest-serving from the 1990 wave of arrests still in Bhutanese custody. His case has become a reference point in the 2025–2026 advocacy campaign, in arguments for an independent national human rights institution in Bhutan and for ratification of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the UN Convention against Torture, neither of which Bhutan has ratified.

Sources and verification notes

The biographical material in this article rests on a small number of advocacy and exile-press sources, with no independent corroboration from Bhutanese state media, court records or an independent inquest. The article follows the dossier-level verification practice of attributing the contested cause of death to its respective sources rather than asserting either account as fact. Direct quotation of the original UN documentation, where it becomes available, should be added in future revisions. The names of Gurung's surviving relatives are deliberately omitted in line with safeguarding practice for family members who may still be inside Bhutan.