NHRC team meets Irom Sharmila

A team of National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) on visit to Manipur has met the rights activist Irom Sharmila Chanu in the security ward at JN Hospital at Imphal on Wednesday, for the first time in twelve years, ever since she had her hunger strike. Following cases filed by Human Rights Alert (HRA) and the Extra-judicial Execution Victim Families’ Association, Manipur, the Supreme Court had recently asked the commission to visit Manipur and take stock of the situation. 41 year old Sharmila had started the hunger strike seeking repeal of the disputed Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act from Manipur. She is being currently forced-fed through her nose by the government. Led by NHRC chairman K.G. Balakrishnan, the team, comprising 20 members and officials, is on a three-day visit to the state to look in to 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. Accompanied by rights activists, including 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. Irom Chanu Sharmila: Irom Sharmila Chanu also known as the "Iron Lady of Manipur" or "Mengoubi" ("the fair one") is a civil rights activist, political activist, and poet from the Indian state of Manipur. Since 2 November 2000, she has been on hunger strike to demand that the Indian government repeal the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958 (AFSPA), which she blames for violence in Manipur and other parts of northeast India. Having refused food and water for more than 500 weeks, she has been called "the world's longest hunger striker". She is currently under trial for attempted suicide. The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC): The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) of India is an autonomous public body constituted on 12th October 1993 under the Protection of Human Rights Ordinance of 28 September 1993. It was given a statutory basis by the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993 (TPHRA). Te NHRC is the national human rights institution, responsible for the protection and promotion of human rights, defined by the Act as "rights relating to life, liberty, equality and dignity of the individual guaranteed by the Constitution or embodied in the International Covenants". The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA), was passed on 11th September 1958, by the Parliament of India. It is a law with just six sections granting special powers to the armed forces in what the act terms as "disturbed areas". The Act has been at the heart of concerns about human rights violations in the regions of its enforcement, where arbitrary killings, torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and enforced disappearances have happened. This act is in force in Kashmir since 1990.

What: NHRC meets Irom Sharmila When: 23rd October 2013 Where: JN Hospital, Imphal, Manipur Why: As part of the visit ordered by Supreme Court to Manipur to look in to complaints of extra-judicial killings