At the beginning of this month, a group of Bhutanese refugees who have been resettled in Europe gathered in Geneva, Switzerland in front of the UN offices to protest both past and present human rights violations committed by the Bhutanese government. On December 4th, various political groups and organizations, including the group protesting, were due to present about the human rights situation in Bhutan. Some of the more pressing topics discussed in the presentations were the refugee crisis and the conflict that brought on the crisis. However, the Human Rights Report generated by the Bhutanese government and presented to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights did not mention the refugee situation. As is noted in the article, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights is required to review the human rights record for all member states every four years. 2009 is the first year that Bhutan will be presenting a human rights report. Additionally, a book has been published about the human rights violations committed by the Bhutanese government, and includes information about the refugees living in Nepal, restriction of voting rights to groups of Nepali-speaking Bhutanese citizens, and failure to provide education to groups of Bhutanese children. The book was written by I.P. Adhikari who is the President of the Association of Press Freedom Activists in Bhutan, and Raju Thapa who is the Director of Human Rights Without Frontiers in Nepal.
Please click on the link below to read the article in full.
http://www.nepalnews.com/main/index.php/news-archive/2-political/2736-bhutanese-refugees-demonstrate-in-geneva.html
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