THE HAGUE, AMSTERDAM, February 7, 2004: Racial categorization has been implemented in the Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan to separate the “true” Bhutanese from the “non-Bhutanese.” Hindus have been enforced to wear clothes which is deemed by the emperor to be truly “Bhutanese.” Grown Hindu women are facing having their long hair forcibly sheared so as to conform with the majority population appearance. This vivid account of the persecution was given at the AGNI Forum on Religious Persecution in South Asia by Mr. Nanda Gautam at The Hague, Holland, on February 7, 2004. When Bhutanese Hindus demonstrated peacefully in the early 1990’s to demand respect for their human rights, they were brutally repressed by the Army, states this report. Over 100,000 Bhutanese Hindus have been forced to flee to India and to Nepal where they have been languishing in camps for the past ten years.
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