NHRC team meets Irom Sharmila for first time in 12 years, hears 40 rights abuse cases in Manipur

[caption id="attachment_9469" align="alignleft" width="320"] Sharmila, who is on a fast since November, 2000, is being currently forced-fed through her nose by the government[/caption]

IMPHAL: Twelve years after rights activist Irom Sharmila started a hunger strike seeking repeal ofArmed Forces (Special Powers) Act from Manipur, a team of National Human Rights Commission(NHRC) met her for the first time in the security ward of JN Hospital here on Wednesday.

Sharmila, who is on a fast since November, 2000, is being currently forced-fed through her nose by the government.

Led by NHRC chairman KG Balakrishnan, the team, comprising 20 members and officials, is on a three-day visit to the state. The team will also hold a sitting in Imphalon Thursday to examine the human rights situation in the strife-torn state. Complaints of extra-judicial killings, public distribution system, plight of fishermen whose huts in Loktak Lake were destroyed by the government, irregular release of salaries of government school teachers, healthcare system and condition at prisons are the issues which the commission will examine.

Accompanied by rights activists, including Human Rights Alert (HRA) executive director Babloo Loitongbam, Balakrishnan and some members recorded Sharmila’s statement on the state government’s frequent denial to grant permission to visitors, including her family members, to meet her.

On Friday, the members of the panel will meet representatives of social organizations, state chief secretary, DGP and jail officials, a source said.

In the meantime, Reach Out, an NGO, will file a representation to the commission against the government’s denial to clear salaries of SSA and RMSA teachers for some months. “We are all ready to file the representation to the commission on Thursday for doing the needful,” said the NGO’s chief coordinator, Kshetrimayum Onil.

Following cases filed by HRA and the self-explanatory Extra-judicial Execution Victim Families’ Association, Manipur, the Supreme Court had recently asked the commission to visit Manipur and take stock of the situation.

The two bodies, in their petitions, demanded a probe into over 1500 cases of fake encounter killings by the forces in Manipur.

 

NHRC hears 40 rights abuse cases in Manipur

IMPHAL: The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) heard nearly 40 rights violation cases at its camp in Imphal on Thursday.

Led by its chairperson justice K G Balakrishnan, the commission heard cases of extra-judicial killings by government forces, lack of healthcare facilities and ecological imbalances in the Loktak Lake.

On Wednesday, commission members justice Cyriac Joseph, justice Satyabrata Pal and director general (investigation) Kanwaljit Deol met Irom Sharmila Chanu in the security ward of JN Hospital here where she is being forced-fed by the government. Seeking repeal of the controversial Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, Sharmila has been fasting since November, 2000. The 'Iron Lady of Manipur' told the commission that she will continue her democratic agitation till the military Act is scrapped.

The NHRC team arrived here on Tuesday on a three-day visit to the state to study the human rights scenario.

Irom Sharmila looks forward to Anna visit

IMPHAL: Irom Sharmila Chanu, who is on an indefinite fast for the last 10 years seeking repeal of the controversial Armed Forces (Special) Powers Act, has expressed gratitude to Anna Hazare for deciding to visit Manipur to support her campaign.

"If he comes to support my stir, it will be really good for the people. It's up to his conscience whether he would fast or not. But I will not insist him to do so," the Iron Lady said. 

A core committee member of India Against Corruption has already said Anna would soon visit the state to support Sharmila's cause. Notwithstanding the media report of the Gandhian's visit, Sharmila also invited Anna to join her campaign against Afspa in Manipur.

Demanding repeal of the army Act that gives sweeping powers to the armed forces to the extent that they can even shoot persons on mere suspicion, Sharmila is on a fast since November 5, 2000. She took the step a couple of days after Assam Rifles jawans mowed down 10 civilians at Malom village in Imphal West.

At present, she is being forced-fed through her nose by the government at the security ward of Jawaharlal Nehru Hospital, close to her Konpal Kongkham Leikai residence in Imphal East.

Minutes before being remanded in judicial custody by an Imphal court on Tuesday, Sharmila expressed her desire to call UN Commission of Human Rights to see for itself gross violation of human rights by security forces in the country and Manipur in particular.

"It's up to God's will that AFSPA would be scrapped and for me I'll continue with my mission against the draconian Act," she said.

Earlier, Team Anna's core committee member Arvind Kejriwal had invited Sharmila to join Anna's agitation at Ramlila ground. While supporting Anna's movement, Sharmila had said she could not join him in Delhi as she was in judicial custody and state authorities would not allow her to leave Manipur. She, however, expressed solidarity with Anna's cause from Imphal.

As decided by the Just Peace Foundation (JPF), a trust formed for Sharmila's cause, it sent its coordinator, Seram Rojesh, to join Anna rally on the Ramlila Maidan. Hordes of film personalities, including Amir Khan, civil society leaders and academicians had also extended support to the fight of the Iron Lady.

Last Sunday, Seram quoted Aamir as saying, "The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958, should be repealed and I support Sharmila's crusade." On being briefed about Sharmila's condition, the Bollywood actor, who's in New Delhi to support Anna's cause, said, "Let's think what I can do for Sharmila."

Social activist Medha Patkar is also said to have told the JPF that they would support Sharmila's fight against the military act.

One day, my fight will also be recognised: Irom Sharmila

Imphal, August 30 (IANS): Irom Sharmila, on a hunger strike for the past 11 years, Tuesday said a day would come when her fight against rights violations by security forces would be acknowledged by New Delhi like the way parliament had recognised Anna Hazare's campaign against corruption. "The central government recognised Anna Hazare as a true Indian citizen and hence accepted his demands. I am sure one day the government would recognise me and my fight against rights violations," Sharmila told journalists outside a local court where she was being presented for a routine hearing.



"I would like to urge Anna to visit Manipur and see for himself what is happening here," Sharmila said as she was shoved inside a police van from the court premises. Dubbed as the Iron Lady of Manipur, Sharmila began her fast Nov 2, 2000, after witnessing the killing of 10 people by the army at a bus stop near her home. Now around 40, she was arrested shortly after beginning her protest -- on charges of attempted suicide. She was sent to a prison hospital where she began a daily routine of being force-fed via a nasal drip.

Sharmila is frequently set free by local courts, but once outside, she resumes her hunger-strike and is rearrested. She is campaigning for the repeal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) that enables security forces to shoot on sight and arrest anybody without a warrant. Civil rights campaigners in Manipur are upset with the mainstream media for the disparity in coverage by comparing Anna Hazare's anti-graft fast and ignoring the over decade-long hunger strike by Irom Chanu Sharmila.
"There is a general sense of feeling that we, the people of the northeast, have always been neglected, discriminated, and looked down upon by the rest of India, including the mainstream media. See how Anna's fast has hogged media headlines and see our very own Irom fasting for nearly 11 years," Singhajit Singh, a civil rights campaigner and Sharmila's elder brother, said. "The attitude of the Indian public is sad in the sense that something happening in the northeast is seldom recognized by the mainstream media. The whole attitude is discriminatory," said Babloo Loitongbam from a local human rights group.

AFSPA was passed in 1990 to grant security forces special powers and immunity from prosecution to deal with raging insurgencies in the northeastern states and in Jammu and Kashmir. The act is a target for local human rights groups and international campaigners such as Amnesty International, which say the law has been an excuse for extra-judicial killings. Amnesty has campaigned vociferously against the legislation, which it sees as a stain on India's democratic credentials and a violation of international human rights laws. Sharmila is currently being held in an isolated room at the Jawarharlal Nehru Hospital here.

"If Anna was born in Manipur and Sharmila born in New Delhi, things would have been just the reverse. For the mainstream media, northeast or things happening in the northeast hardly excite them," Singh said. Earlier in the day, former union home secretary G.K. Pillai said that Sharmila must "reach out to people across the country" like Hazare to make her cause known. "It is a question of how you reach out to people. AFSPA is applicable only in Jammu & Kashmir and in the northeastern states. Corruption is pricking people everywhere and that's why Anna Hazare had a high moral ground," Pillai told IANS Monday.

"She (Sharmila) has to reach out to the people across the country. She has to say why she is on fast," said Pillai. Manipur is home to 2.4 million people and about 19 separatist groups which have demands ranging from autonomy to independence. An estimated 10,000 people have been killed during the past two decades of violence.

Anna to meet Irom Sharmila soon

Social activist Anna Hazare will soon visit Manipur to meet civil rights activist Irom Sharmila, RTI activist and Team Anna member Akhil Gogoi said in Guwahati after his return from Delhi. 

Gogoi also said that Anna had extended his moral support to the Iron Lady of Manipur, who has been on hunger strike for over 10 years now, demanding the repeal of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act in the state.

After being released from hospital, Anna would return back to his village in Maharashtra and post this he would be visiting Assam and the North East to commence the next round of democratic movement.

On the first day of his visit to Northeast, Hazare will join an anti-dam protest in Assam and would visit Manipur the next day, Gogoi said.

 

 

The Other Half - Another India, another protest

The Hindu Article.

Lone battle: Irom Sharmila, force-fed and kept alive by the State. Photo: The Hindu Photo Library

While the farcical drama around Anna Hazare's protest and arrest has hogged the limelight, Irom Sharmila's indefinite fast since 2000 to get the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) repealed continues to be ignored by the nation and the media…

A day after Indians ‘celebrated' Independence Day by following the annual ritual of hoisting the flag, singing the national anthem and patriotic songs and listening to politicians, including the Prime Minister, talk about the strengths of Indian democracy, the police cracked down on a much-celebrated campaigner against corruption, Anna Hazare and his team.

The drama that followed his arrest and that of others in his team, the growing protests, the late night release and then Anna's refusal to be released was not just farcical; it was a pitiful display of a government with no respect for people's right to protest and no strategy to deal with those who demand that right. In one day, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government managed to unite the opposition. Even those who do not subscribe to every aspect of Hazare's campaign, such as his demand that only his team's formulation of the Lok Pal Bill be accepted, strongly condemned the government's actions. On August 16, Anna Hazare successfully “arrested” the UPA government.

Ignored

Yet even as Hazare's anti-corruption crusade gained momentum with hundreds courting voluntary arrest, in another part of India, a protestor who has used a similar tactic, of going on an indefinite fast, continues to be ignored by the rest of the country and by the political leadership.

Given the issue — rooting out corruption — and the mobilisation of groups in big cities across India, as well as the concerted media attention, some might consider it irrelevant to talk about a corner of the country where a lone woman continues her fight against the truly undemocratic Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) imposed on Manipur that has made life a living hell for the ordinary people of that State.

Indeed, when the rest of India — barring, of course, the Kashmir Valley — celebrated Independence Day, the scene in Manipur was strikingly different. Pradip Phanjoubam, Editor of the Imphal Free Press, wrote this moving opening paragraph in his editorial on August 15 titled, “State of Independence”:

“On the eve of the India's Independence Day, Imphal is acquiring the look of a war front. The scenario is not too different in other townships in Manipur as indeed in much of the Northeast. It has almost become a ritual every year. Various militant organisations would call for a boycott of the celebration of what is arguably the biggest and most important day in the country's history and in response the provincial governments would virtually stage flag marches to demonstrate the power of the establishment and push its way without being deterred by any threat whatsoever. Uniformed gun totting security personnel are on every corner of the streets frisking people, stopping motorists, checking their vehicles, questioning them etc. As expected, even a week before the big day approached, Imphal already began wearing a deserted look, especially after sunset. People return home early so as not to be accosted by security men and go through the humiliation of being made to stand on the side of the roads to be frisked and questioned like potential trouble makers. The ordinary people are supposed to be mere bystanders in this war game, but every time tensions escalate in moments like this, they have no choice than to be prepared to be the undeserved casualties, and sometimes become statistics of ‘ collateral damage', the well known sugar-coating aimed at making civilian killing and harassment seem like necessary and pardonable fallout of a conflict.”

Yes, Imphal is a long way from our relatively comfortable lives in cities in the rest of India, even if our lives are disrupted by the occasional power outage, by water shortage, by pot-holes on our roads, by inflation, and by the government deciding to deny those so inclined the right to protest. But Manipur is also India. Yet, here people live without electricity for most of the day, even in the capital city. Here, the areas with a sufficient water supply would probably be only those where the government and the army reside. Here, people are afraid to go out after dark and markets close as soon as the sun sets. Here, men with arms, the security forces and the various groups of militants, run the show. Here, ‘democracy' seems a theoretical construct, certainly not a lived reality.

Beacon of hope

And here, since November 2000, a 38-year-old woman, Irom Sharmila, has been on an indefinite fast demanding withdrawal of AFSPA. She is under arrest and is being force-fed by the government in a public hospital in Imphal. Every year she is released, and then re-arrested. Yet, this woman of unimaginable courage will simply not give up. And by holding on to her resolve, she holds up a small candle of hope for the people of her state. A hope that people will notice, that her determination will be recognised, that the current government, which in its earlier term had promised to look again at AFSPA, will not break one more promise.

We have forgotten that a year after the UPA government first took office in 2004, it set up a five-member committee headed by retired Supreme Court judge B. P. Jeevan Reddy. The committee recommended, amongst other things, a withdrawal of AFSPA. So Sharmila's demand is not unreasonable; a government-appointed committee has endorsed it. But the recommendation was given more than six years ago. Yet today, the security forces continue to enjoy the right to act with impunity, while the citizens of Manipur, who are also citizens of India, live without many fundamental rights guaranteed to them under our Constitution.

Anna Hazare's campaign, in the national capital and in full media glare, is premised on scepticism about the government's intent on the matter of dealing with corruption. But Sharmila has even a greater reason for scepticism given the absence of any movement on a recommendation that has been before the government for so many years.

If we are concerned about freedom, about democratic rights, about the right to protest, let us also remember other protests, other parts of India where democratic rights are being denied. Let us remember Sharmila.

Email the writer: sharma.kalpana@yahoo.com

 

source: http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/Kalpana_Sharma/article2372648.ece