{"id":43201,"date":"2023-05-05T12:54:16","date_gmt":"2023-05-05T07:09:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nepallivetoday.com\/?p=43201"},"modified":"2023-05-05T12:54:18","modified_gmt":"2023-05-05T07:09:18","slug":"amnesty-international-and-human-rights-watch-ask-bhutanese-king-to-free-political-prisoners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nepallivetoday.com\/2023\/05\/05\/amnesty-international-and-human-rights-watch-ask-bhutanese-king-to-free-political-prisoners\/","title":{"rendered":"Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch ask Bhutanese King to free political prisoners"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Kathmandu: <\/strong>King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck should use his authority to\u00a0release<\/a>\u00a0political prisoners being held in poor conditions since decades through unfair trails in Bhutan, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said Friday. King Jigme will visit London to attend the coronation of King Charles III on May 6, 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bhutanese law<\/a>\u00a0defines those imprisoned for \u2018offenses against the Tsa-Wa-Sum (king, country and people)\u2019 as \u2018political prisoners.\u2019 Of the 37 known cases, the longest serving have been in prison since 1990 and many were sentenced to life without parole. Most are accused of opposing discriminatory policies and rights violations targeting Bhutan\u2019s Nepali speaking community, which faced\u00a0persecution in the 1990s<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBhutan has cultivated an image around the world as an enlightened kingdom committed to promoting \u2018Gross National Happiness<\/a>,\u2019 but the continuing imprisonment\u00a0 of these political prisoners tells a different story,\u201d said\u00a0Dinushika Dissanayake, deputy director for South Asia\u00a0at\u00a0Amnesty International. \u201cUnder\u00a0Bhutan\u2019s constitution<\/a>, only King Jigme has the power to grant early release and he should do so without further delay, to end the suffering of these prisoners and their families.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018They treated us mercilessly\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Based on the\u00a0accounts of former political prisoners and families<\/a>, the political prisoners were subjected to torture and had no access to defense lawyers at the time of their arrest and trial. Currently, the prisoners are reportedly given inadequate food, heating and bedding in a generally cold climate, and are denied regular communications or visits from their families.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey [Bhutanese soldiers] arrested us\u2026 and for 20 days they treated us mercilessly,\u201d one\u00a0prisoner said<\/a>\u00a0to Human Rights Watch. \u201cAfter that, they prepared a statement as per their own wish and thought, not based on what we said. They brought us to the district court. The judge asked us, \u2018Do you have anything to say?\u2019 So we gave them our statement in writing. But there was no use of that submission. They used their own statements instead.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sister of another prisoner who was arrested in 2008 and remains in prison said, \u201cHe was tortured by the army\u2026They [the prisoners] were beaten and burned. When I met him, he was very sad, his eyes were full of tears.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2019,\u00a0United Nations experts<\/a>\u00a0noted that some of these prisoners had been convicted of \u2018terrorism\u2019<\/a>\u00a0but that they were accused of \u2018actions that appeared\u2026 to be unrelated to terrorism.\u2019 The UN experts found that those \u2018serving life sentences have no prospect of release, with the exception of amnesty,\u2019 and recommended that the cases be reviewed \u2018to determine whether there were any due process violations that may have led to their conviction.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of the 37 known \u2018political prisoners,\u2019 32 belong to Bhutan\u2019s Nepali-speaking community, known as Lhotshampas, while five belong to another community known as Sharchops. The Sharchop prisoners are accused of ties to a banned political party,\u00a0the Druk National Congress<\/a>, which campaigned for democratic reform in the 1990s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Release political prisoners<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The King of Bhutan may grant\u00a0kidu\u00a0(<\/em>relief) as well as \u201camnesty, pardon and reduction of sentences.\u201d The\u00a0Sentencing Guideline of the Judiciary of Bhutan\u00a0<\/a>states that an offender \u201csentenced to life in prison shall remain in prison until he or she dies or until pardoned or otherwise commuted to a fixed period, or receives Royal pardon, amnesty or clemency.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1999, the king at that time, Jigme Singye Wangchuck,\u00a0granted amnesty\u00a0to\u00a040 political prisoners<\/a>, including some serving\u00a0life sentences. In 2022, the present monarch, King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck,\u00a0granted amnesty<\/a>\u00a0to a political prisoner serving a life term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBhutan has undergone democratic reforms and made\u00a0efforts to modernize its legal system<\/a>\u00a0since 2008, but these political prisoners received unfair trials that condemned them to spend their lives in prison,\u201d said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch. \u201cThe king should close this chapter, show compassion, and free these prisoners now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kathmandu: King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck should use his authority to\u00a0release\u00a0political prisoners being held in poor conditions since decades through unfair trails in Bhutan, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said Friday. King Jigme will visit London to attend the coronation of King Charles III on May 6, 2023. Bhutanese law\u00a0defines those imprisoned for \u2018offenses […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":43202,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,15,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nepali-diaspora","category-top-stories","category-world"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nepallivetoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Bhutan.webp?fit=634%2C329&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcWLTd-beN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nepallivetoday.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nepallivetoday.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nepallivetoday.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nepallivetoday.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nepallivetoday.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43201"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.nepallivetoday.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43201\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43205,"href":"https:\/\/www.nepallivetoday.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43201\/revisions\/43205"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nepallivetoday.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nepallivetoday.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nepallivetoday.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nepallivetoday.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}