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Iron-hearted activist Chanu
Sharmila released and re-arrested
Jagmohan Singh
 India
celebrated the International Women’s Day in an unparalleled way.
The gritty activist Irom Chanu Sharmila who was released on 7th
March was re-arrested on the afternoon of 8th March
–International Women’s day, after spending barely 20 hours with her
family and friends. She is again in the Jawaharlal Nehru Hospital
from where she was released.
Despite her failing health and young age, the never-say-die
Sharmila continues to taunt the Indian state for abrogation of the
provisions of the draconian anti-people provisions of the Armed
Forces Special Powers Act in Manipur and other parts of the
North-east in
India.
Though released intermittently for few days and weeks during
her 8 long years in prison, she has continued her struggle while
being incarcerated under charges of attempted suicide. As was
expected, even though there is no ground for the government to
continue with her detention, but as she continues to be on fast, for
repeal of the AFSPA Act, 1958 she has been imprisoned again for
attempted suicide because the government of
India seems to be
in no mood to relent.
The Armed Forces Special Powers Act, 1958, which has been in
force in the North east for more than five decades, is a breach of
the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The
sweeping powers under the law, including the power to shoot to kill
on mere suspicion and the blanket impunity granted to the armed
forces has resulted in heinous human rights violations including
rape and extrajudicial murders. According to estimates by human
rights bodies thousands of innocent Manipuris have been killed over
the years and many are still under illegal detention of the armed
forces.
 It does not shame India –‘the largest democracy of the world’
that the UN Human Rights Committee, the UN Committee on the
Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the UN Committee on
Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women and the
Committee on the Right of the Child have condemned AFSPA and urged
India on many occasions to remove it from the statute.
It is sad but
not surprising that the mainstream Indian media not omitted news of
her arrest and her re-arrest. Much of civil society was silent
leaving only the Delhi-based Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR) to
condemn her re-arrest by the Manipur police as they were unwilling
to allow her to address a meeting of the Apunba Manipur Kanba Ima
Lup (Mothers Union to Save Manipur) to observe International Women’s
Day.
8
March 2008
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