Bhutanese political prisoners issue, among others, was raised at the UN Geneva – Bhutan News Network
Representing the Global Campaign for the Release of Political Prisoners in Bhutan (GCRPPB), its founder and Global Coordinator, Mr Ram Karki, raised the issue of Bhutanese political prisoners, the Bhutanese refugee crisis and the need to grant the right to resettled former Bhutanese refugees with an overseas passport to visit Bhutan and the needs of an independent Human Rights body inside Bhutan to monitor the cases of Human Rights at an event in Geneva today. Mr Karki was speaking during Universal Periodic Review (UPR) pre-sessions on Bhutan in UN Geneva, where the Geneva-based Bhutanese Ambassador H.E. Mr Tenzin Rondel Wangchuk, its permanent representative Mrs Dechen Om and a large number of diplomats from various member states were present.
Regarding Bhutanese political prisoners, Mr Karki urged the government to grant amnesty to all its political prisoners immediately and unconditionally. He requested the member states to make the following recommendations in the forthcoming Universal Periodic Review (UPR) on Bhutan on this issue to Bhutan:
- Grant amnesty to all the political prisoners immediately and unconditionally.
- Ensure that released political prisoners receive proper rehabilitation inside the country and are compensated adequately.
- Invite International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to monitor prison conditions and facilitate family visits.
On the issue of Bhutanese refugees, and those resettled former Bhutanese with overseas passports willing to visit Bhutan, the international community was urged to make the following recommendations to Bhutan:
- Immediately develop a process for repatriating all those Bhutanese refugees who wish to return with honour and dignity in a time-bound manner under the supervision of the UNHCR.
- Guarantee the right of former Bhutanese citizens with overseas passports to obtain tourist visas to visit Bhutan to meet their near and dear ones.
Explaining the several incidents of human rights violations such as arbitrary detention, unfair trials, Unlawful state seizures of private land, lack of freedom of expression and speech and discrimination in the recognition of citizenship in Bhutan Mr Karki asked the member states to make the following recommendations to Bhutan in the forthcoming UPR session on Bhutan:
- Take immediate measures to establish an Independent Human Rights Institution in Bhutan, per the Paris Principles.
- Eliminate all obstacles curtailing the country’s freedom of press, speech, and expression.
- Allow international human rights organisations to operate in the country.
This is possibly the first time in the history of the Bhutanese refugee movement that a representative of a Bhutanese refugee organisation has made a presentation at the UN platform, with high-level Bhutanese government officials as the main audience members and directly urging Bhutan government face to face to resolve the aforementioned issues in the presence of a large numbers of permanent representatives of the UN member countries.
Karki also participated in the EU-Civil Society consultation at its Geneva based office in today’s afternoon and spoke about those issues, and urged EU countries to make strong recommendations to Bhutan in the forthcoming UPR session. European Union countries were also asked to urge the Bhutan government to stop dumping into India those political prisoners who will be released in future and ask Bhutan to rehabilitate them inside the country with adequate compensation or arrange family reunion with the countries where such prisoners families are resettled.
Karki thanked his team at GCRPPB for their tireless effort over several months in preparing the UPR report and other documents for the UPR event. He also thanked Geneva-based UPR Info for selecting GCRPPB to represent Bhutanese civil society as one of the speakers in this pre-session and for covering his travel costs.
Since this meeting was about raising issues with Bhutan, Mr Karki said he could not address the burning problems faced by the Bhutanese refugee camps in Nepal, such as identity cards, travel documents, relief supplies, and other fundamental issues facing the people there.
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