Manipur court orders release of Irom Sharmila...again

A Manipur court has ordered the release of Manipur’s ‘Iron Lady’ Irom Sharmila, who has been on a hunger strike for over 14 years, demanding the repeal of the controversial Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSA). [caption id=“attachment_2059395” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] A court in Manipur ordered the release of Irom Sharmila. Reuters[/caption] The court refused to accept the Manipur Police’s chargesheet over a 2014 case, charging her with an attempt to commit suicide, according to a press release by Amnesty International India. Sharmila told the judge, as quoted by NDTV , “I am tired of this cycle of release and re-arrest. Please put my case to trial once and for all. Let the case be decided”. “It is an outrage that Irom Sharmila has been in prison for over 14 years for a peaceful protest,” said Shemeer Babu, Programmes Director, Amnesty International India in the press statement. “The judgement must end the farcical cycle of arrest and re-arrest that this brave activist has faced for so long. Authorities must not detain Irom Sharmila again, but engage with the issues she is raising.” A local court in Imphal had on 19 August, 2014 freed Irom Sharmila of charges of attempt to commit suicide by means of fasting after which she walked out of the hospital-turned-prison. However, the civil rights activist was arrested just three days later by the police on fresh charges of attempt to commit suicide and remanded to judicial custody by the court. “We re-arrested her this morning and have obtained 15 days’ judicial custody order from a magistrate of the CJM court on charges of attempt to commit suicide (Section 309 of IPC),” Manipur ADG (Intelligence) Santosh Macherla told PTI on 22 August, 2014. “The court released her for her past act. Now she is again refusing to take food and water and resisting any medical check-up as well. Her health had deteriorated and now she will be kept at the same hospital ward where she was kept earlier,” Macherla had said. Sharmila began her hunger strike on 5 November, 2000, after ten civilians were killed in an ’encounter’ by Assam Rifles personnel at Malom area near Imphal airport on 2 November, 2000. In March 2013, a Delhi court had charged Sharmila with attempt to commit suicide in October 2006 when she had protested in New Delhi for two days. In December 2014, Amnesty International India had also appealed to the government to release Sharmila immediately and unconditionally. “The Indian government’s decision to decriminalise suicide is in line with an increasing global trend. This move should lead to the immediate release of Irom Sharmila, who has been held in detention merely for exercising her freedom of expression in a peaceful manner,” Shailesh Rai, programme director at Amnesty International India, had said. The British Medical Association, in a briefing to the World Medical Association, has said that, “hunger strike is not equivalent to suicide. Individuals who embark on hunger strikes aim to achieve goals important to them but generally hope and intend to survive.” This position is embodied by the World Medical Association in its Malta Declaration on Hunger Strikers. (With inputs from PTI)