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HAGUE (NETHERLAND), June 9: Bhutan Watch, a Netherlands-based independent think tank that documents human rights violations in Bhutan, has released a scathing 2025 report exposing the deepening authoritarianism, ethnic exclusion, and democratic backsliding in Bhutan. Titled The 2025 Human Rights Report on Bhutan, the dossier reveals widespread political repression, prolonged arbitrary detentions, torture, statelessness of ethnic Nepalis, and an alarming collapse of press freedom.
Based on survivor testimonies, satellite imagery, field research, and UN documentation, the report provides one of the most comprehensive indictments yet of the Bhutanese regime's sustained violations of international human rights standards.
The report states that at least 35 political prisoners remain behind bars in Bhutan, many for over three decades, imprisoned since the early 1990s for demanding democratic reforms and minority rights. None were granted fair trials, and most were convicted under the vaguely worded National Security Act. Detainees continue to be denied access to legal counsel, medical care, or family visits. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) has declared these imprisonments unlawful and called for their immediate release.
Highlighting recent incidents, the report cites the cases of political prisoners Ram Bahadur Rai and Madhukar Monger, released in 2023 and 2024 after three decades of incarceration. Rather than being reintegrated, they were forcibly deported to Nepal—despite having no legal status there and being born in Bhutan. Their expulsion, the report says, violates the rights to nationality and freedom from arbitrary exile.
International organizations including Human Rights Watch expres...
Although not formally covered within the reporting period (2023-2024), the report expresses grave concern over the continued disappearance of Bhutanese rights defenders like Loknath Acharya and Bom Bahadur Tiwari. Arrested by Bhutanese police, their whereabouts remain unknown. Bhutan has ignored repeated UN requests for information, breaching international laws against enforced disappearance and torture.
The report denounces Bhutan's refusal to allow any independent monitoring of its prisons since 2019. Detainees report threats and coercion ahead of past inspection visits. With no independent national human rights commission or local civil society organizations permitted to investigate, Bhutan's prison system remains effectively opaque and unaccountable.
The report states that Bhutan's press freedom ranking has plummeted—from 33rd in 2022 to 152nd in 2025, according to Reporters Without Borders. The country has criminalized defamation, removed independent oversight by dissolving the Bhutan Media Council, and withdrawn state advertising from critical outlets. Self-censorship is widespread, and journalists face rising intimidation.
Continued discrimination against Lhotshampas
Decades after the expulsion of tens of thousands of ethnic Nepali Bhutanese (Lhotshampas), the report finds many still live stateless in Bhutan, barred from owning land, voting, or accessing education and jobs. Bhutan has refused all international appeals for repatriation or restitution.
More than 7,000 Bhutanese refugees remain stranded in eastern Nepal camps, despite over 90,000 resettlements abroad. Bhutan continues to obstruct third-party negotiations or UN-led solutions, perpetuating the statelessness of an entire generation.
Bhutan Watch in the report criticizes the government's flagship Gelephu Mindfulness City project, built on lands once home to evicted Lhotshampa families. The development, launched without consultation or compensation, exemplifies what the report calls "rewriting injustice through exclusionary development."
The report further states that Bhutan still bans peaceful protests and tightly controls the registration of NGOs. Trade unions are illegal, and labor protections are weak. The report highlights the sharp rise in youth outmigration—with over 5,000 Bhutanese leaving each month in search of opportunity and freedom.
At its 2024 Universal Periodic Review (UPR), Bhutan rejected 68 out of 203 human rights recommendations—including calls to release political prisoners, ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), and establish an independent national human rights commission.
The report has made a series of key recommendations aimed at addressing long standing human rights concerns in Bhutan. The report calls on the Government of Bhutan to release all political prisoners and disclose the status of individuals who have disappeared. It urges the authorities to allow the repatriation of Bhutanese refugees willing to return from Nepal, permit independent prison monitoring, and put an end to forced deportations while restoring the right of return for exiled Bhutanese. The report also emphasizes the need to recognize Lhotshampas as full citizens, halt the Gelephu mega-project until historical land claims are addressed, and restore press freedom by reinstating media oversight. Additionally, it recommends that Bhutan ratify key international human rights treaties, comply with the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) recommendations, and allow resettled Bhutanese holding foreign passports to visit Bhutan as tourists.
