Kathmandu: A few hours before attending an event on interactions with Bhutanese political prisoners, Ram Bahadur Rai experienced severe chest pain. He had arrived in Kathmandu after a 12-hour road trip from Jhapa. He asked if he could have a Brufen to relieve his pain.
He was provided with Brufen, and after taking the painkiller, Rai felt relief and was able to attend the program.
Ram Bahadur Rai, 66, said he was severely tortured in a Bhutanese prison, where he was beaten with a gun heel, causing severe injuries to both sides of his chest. While recounting his experiences, Rai became emotional, revealing that he has broken ribs and is in constant pain.
The Tanka Prasad Memorial Foundation on Friday organized an event, inviting three Bhutanese political prisoners who served years in Bhutanese prisons. Their offense, for Bhutan that is, is that they fought for democracy.
Rai, one of the 35 Bhutan’s political prisoners, was released from Chemgang Central Prison in Thimphu after serving almost 32 years in imprisonment on July 5.
Like Rai, Madhukar Monger is unable to sleep due to constant leg and shoulder pain. Monger, who spent 29 years in prison, recounted how officials in the Bhutanese jail used to hang him from the ceiling and beat him harshly on his legs and shoulders. “Remembering the times in the Bhutanese jail is painful, as political prisoners are constantly tortured by officials,” Monger said.
Monger was released in August 2023 after serving 30 years in prison. Monger had safely reached his brother’s home in the Bhutanese refugee camp Beldangi, Damak, Nepal, on Saturday after he was deported to India by the escorting Royal Bhutan Police on August 9.
Sharing his harrowing experience, Man Bahadur Khaling said, “It feels like being in prison again.” When asked why, Khaling explained, “All my family members are abroad, and I have nobody in Jhapa. I have no proper roof, no food, and I feel like I am in jail again,” he said, adding he can’t even describe the physical torture inflicted by Bhutanese authorities in jail.
The experiences shared by Rai, Monger, and Khaling are just representative cases of Bhutanese political prisoners languishing in jail. They describe the situation in Bhutanese prisons as seriously worrisome, as prisoners are physically tortured, deprived of medical treatment and medicine, and are not provided with proper food. Likewise, political detainees like them are surviving on meager rations and are reduced to using rice sacks for clothing and bedding.
In 2023, Human Rights Watch documented 37 inmates classified by Bhutan’s government as political prisoners, who were first detained between 1990 and 2008. Still, at least 34 remain in jails in Bhutan.
Apart from physical torture, Nepali-speaking Bhutanese prisoners said that they are obliged to buy their own medicines if they fall sick. “When you fall sick, authorities ask you to call your family members to get you medicine. But how could we, when all our family members are in Nepal or in third countries as part of the third-country resettlement? You are left without proper treatment and medicine. You are just left to die,” said Rai, who was treated the same way multiple times in jail.
Rai, Khaling and Monger are among the 100,000 Nepali-speaking Bhutan people who were forced to flee the country in 1991 after violence and persecution by the government at that time.
After the brutal crushing of the peaceful movement for human rights and democracy in Bhutan during the 1990s, more than one-sixth of the country’s population was forcibly evicted from Bhutan, and hundreds of peaceful human rights activists were arrested. In due course, a Bhutanese refugee camp was established in eastern Tarai after India pushed them further into Nepal.
During this time, Bhutanese refugees organized several peaceful movements to return to Bhutan from Nepal but failed; instead, several activists were arrested and imprisoned for life on charges of violating the National Security Act.
The physical and mental torture is haunting them. However, they are traumatized by the fact that Nepal also feels like being in a Bhutanese jail. The reason is that they do not have refugee cards, and their future is uncertain. “Right now, we are staying in our friends’ homes in camps for a few days before shifting to another. Our future is uncertain as the government of Nepal is also reluctant to solve the issue,” they said.
According to Khaling, the government of Nepal must provide them with travel documents so that they could travel to their families who have resettled in third countries.
Experts at the program questioned the democracy of Bhutan, stating that Bhutan has been brainwashing the global community with its “Gross National Happiness Index.”
“How can Bhutan be a happy country when its citizens are languishing in jail? It doesn’t even recognize Nepali-speaking prisoners as its citizens, leaving them at the Indo-Bhutan border after their release from jail. Bhutan claims to be a democracy, but how can they imprison Nepali-speaking Bhutanese citizens for years and subject them to severe torture just for fighting for their rights?” they questioned.
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