Peace Initiative Bhutan

Building peace, fostering healing & seeking justice in Bhutan. Empowering communities to achieve reconciliation & create a harmonious society 🙏 Join us

[Kanak Mani Dixit @KanakManiDixit]

A tragedy unfolds silently: Chaturman Tamang and Hasta Bahadur Rai, who grew up in Bhutanese refugee camps of Jhapa, tried to go back home in 2008 but were caught and jailed by the Thimphu Government. They spent 18 years in Chamgang Central Prison as political prisoners, were released and dumped at the India border, warned not to come back. They tried to get back to the refugee camp in Nepal, but Indian and Nepali authorties would not let them through because they had no papers. Without choice, they are now headed back to Bhutan and tragic uncertainty.
https://t.co/EeuCBm3tgj

[Peace Initiative Bhutan @PeaceInBhutan]

When will west including @EUAmbIndia @EU_in_India @Europarl_EN @EUCouncil start listening people who were pushed out of Bhutan? It is time to find positive peace in Bhutan through reconciliation.

[EU in India @EU_in_India]

🎞️ Arriving in Thimphu tomorrow…
The EU Film Festival makes its Bhutan debut 🇧🇹✨

📍 City Cinema, Thimphu
📅 21–23 May 2026
🎟️ Free Entry 🍿

#EUFFBhutan #EUFilmFestival #Bhutan #Thimphu #EuropeWeek #WindowToEurope #EuropeanCinema #EUBhutan

[Peace Initiative Bhutan @PeaceInBhutan]

With respect, this is nothing compared to the expulsion of one-sixth of Bhutan’s population.
Over 100,000 people were forced out. Families have been separated for decades. Parents died without seeing their children. Funerals missed. Final goodbyes denied. An entire diaspora lives with generational trauma.
Climate matters. Forests matter.
But human beings matter first.
You can’t sell environmental virtue while ignoring mass displacement, erased citizenship, and permanent family separation.
No AI fixes injustice.
No carbon sink offsets exile.
The UN should have better priorities.

[Peace Initiative Bhutan @PeaceInBhutan]

On the occasion of Bhutan’s National Day, Peace Initiative Bhutan extends warm congratulations to His Majesty the King and to the people of Bhutan. @KingofBhutan @PMBhutan @BhutanNews @unbhutan @UNPeacebuilding @tsheringtobgay

[Amnesty International USA @amnestyusa]

Thank you to @SenPeterWelch & the Vermont Delegation @SenSanders @RepBeccaB for meeting with @AFP journalist Dylan Collins @collinsdyl & continuing to demand accountability for the unlawful and deadly attack by Israeli forces on a group of journalists while reporting in Lebanon in Oct 2023. https://t.co/rOGrSHmE4v

[Omar Shakir @OmarSShakir]

Imagine watching your kids cry inconsolably bc their stomachs are cramping w emptiness & there’s nothing you can do. That's reality for parents in Gaza due to Israeli-engineered mass starvation. Govs must urgently act—history will judge them. New from @hrw
https://t.co/alcqaHJQ2p

[Amnesty International USA @amnestyusa]

Kill the Bill! https://t.co/IgMtUVURz8

[Bill Madden @maddenifico]

Watch Rachel Maddow destroy Elon Musk by merely telling the truth about the world's richest Nazi and his catastrophic clusterfuck called DOGE. 😳👇

[Peace Initiative Bhutan @PeaceInBhutan]

Dipisha KC also testified stating: I carry those threads with me. Because the trauma of my community has become my own.
So much so that it has led me to pursue my degree in global studies with a focus on human rights, and if my studies have taught me anything, it is that injustice to anyone is injustice to me. One refugee in captivity threatens my freedom. The bars that still cage our brothers and fathers in Bhutan do not just confine them—they confine our healing, our ability to breathe fully, to grieve, to move forward. We are here today not just to tell you what happened, but to ask you to help us change what continues.

[Peace Initiative Bhutan @PeaceInBhutan]

Kamal Adhikari, said in front of the Ohio Senate Committee: I was raised by my mother with three siblings. The word 'father' meant nothing to me until I was six—when my father, Ram Chandra Adhikari, was finally released from a Bhutanese prison. He never knew why he was taken.
He was tortured—beaten with iron rods, soldiers jumped on his legs with metal bars, and prisoners were urinated on when they begged for water. Today, at 66 and battling cancer, his deepest wounds are still the memories. All this, because he wore the wrong clothes, spoke the wrong language, and followed the wrong faith.
Dozens like him still suffer behind bars. SR-69 is more than a resolution—it’s a recognition of their pain. It says: we see you, we hear you, and we won’t forget you. #FamilyUnity #Bhutan #GNHwithNoHappiness

[Peace Initiative Bhutan @PeaceInBhutan]

Bhakta Giri was jailed in Bhutan when he was 10 grade student, forced to split stones and clean toilets with his bare hands. At Chamgang, we starved, slept on concrete, lived with lice, and watched friends die from torture. Monoj Biswa was beaten to death. There was no justice—only silence. Finally in 1992, after extreme torture, he was released. #Bhutan #HumanRights

[Peace Initiative Bhutan @PeaceInBhutan]

Today, I am here to urge you to pass this resolution. We seek the U.S. government’s
support to establish a peaceful dialogue with Bhutan—one that will help reunite families,
allow the repatriation of over 6,000 Bhutanese refugees still in Nepal, and secure the
release of political prisoners who have been unjustly detained for over 30 years.

[Peace Initiative Bhutan @PeaceInBhutan]

#DhanLametare also testified for #SR69 recollecting her memories of 1990s. She told the committee that the @BhutanGov officials frequently visited her home in Chirang district, harassed her, and
interrogated her family members daily. In 1991, the Bhutan army raided her home, looking for her father, Shiva Adhikari. Although he was ill and bedridden, they dragged him outside, took him to a military camp, and tortured him for five days. The
only questions they asked were related to his supposed support for democracy and his relation to her uncle.

[Peace Initiative Bhutan @PeaceInBhutan]

Dhan further said, "He was eventually released after signing a voluntary migration form. He did this under government pressure to save his and his family’s life."

"Our family was given 15 days to leave our homeland. That is how we ended up
in a refugee camp in Nepal, where we lived for two decades."

[Peace Initiative Bhutan @PeaceInBhutan]

@AratiChapagai Arati Chapagai, testifying before the #Ohio Senate Committee, spoke for those still in #refugee camps:
“They have no platform. Many are too old or too tired to keep fighting—but their dignity and lives still matter. We can’t turn our backs.”
She called #SR69 a step toward justice:
“It’s a call to acknowledge the past and ensure these refugees are no longer forgotten.”

[Peace Initiative Bhutan @PeaceInBhutan]

He further recalled what Rijal dai shared to him: "I saw it all. We were in the same cell. They beat us one by one. The officer who beat Punya uncle was cruel. They broke his skull. Blood came from his mouth, nose, head, skin—even his private parts. There was no place he wasn’t bleeding.” He recalled. 
After much torture to the pulp, one last day, Punya uncle struggled to breathe. His inmate Rizal Dai took off his blood-soaked clothes, hoping to ease his pain and breathe. But it was too late. He died in front of him. The Army then forced Rizal Dai to put his body in a box. They never returned him to his family. His family waited months, hoping that the government would return his body. His family never healed.
Rohit said, "cruelty had no bounds in Bhutan. Happiness is a showcase to foreigners."

[Peace Initiative Bhutan @PeaceInBhutan]

#RohitSubedi, remembering his childhood he stated to the committee, "I was stopped by police for wearing my traditional Nepali clothes. They stripped me to my underwear. Another day, soldiers stormed our home, kicked our food, and forced me to eat rotten cow meat. This was their message: erase your identity—or leave."#Bhutan #RefugeeVoices

[Peace Initiative Bhutan @PeaceInBhutan]

Co-founder of #PeaceInitiativeBhutan sharing his personal story, he said, "At the root of this injustice was fear—fear of difference. The @BhutanGov saw our culture, language, and religion as a threat. In 1985, they amended the citizenship law, making it nearly impossible for people like us to prove we belonged. Then in 1988, a census was conducted only in the southern districts where most Lhotshampas lived. Its true purpose was not documentation, it was exclusion."
He urged the Senate to adopt his resolution stressing on distinguished committee to support this resolution stating "Justice delayed is justice denied.”

[Peace Initiative Bhutan @PeaceInBhutan]

He further said, "This resolution isn’t just about the past—it educates future generations and public leaders about the dangers of ethnic nationalism and the importance of standing up for the voiceless."

[Peace Initiative Bhutan @PeaceInBhutan]

Dr. Pradip Bastola also testified for SR69, as someone who is not Bhutanese but a close ally. To the committee, he said, "My wife was a child when her family—ethnic Nepali Lhotshampas—was violently forced out of Bhutan. Her uncle was beaten, tortured and assaulted. Their citizenship was revoked. They spent over a decade stateless in a refugee camp in Nepal. They were invisible."

"Today, she is an American citizen. And I’m proud to stand beside her—transforming pain into purpose."