Rights body asks Manipur govt to immediately remove all restrictions imposed on access to her.
The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has asked the Manipur government to immediately remove all restrictions imposed on access to rights activist Irom Sharmila.
Taking suo motu cognisance of the ‘arbitrary restrictions’, the Commission, in a hard-hitting letter, asked the state government to immediately remove them as they were “in breach of India’s obligations under international human rights standards and principles, and a grave violation of human rights”.
“The Commission in its notice to the chief secretary of the state government has said that Sharmila must be permitted to receive visitors under the regime that governs all persons in judicial custody. The Commission has asked him to report to it by December 6, 2013, on the steps it has taken in response to this recommendation,” a statement issued by the Commission on Wednesday stated.
The statement said if the state government could deny permission to its special rapporteur, a retired DG of the police, and to special rapporteurs of the UN to visit Sharmila, it was unlikely that others were allowed access to her.
“It would appear that, while keeping her alive, since her death would create problems for the state government, it is trying to break her spirit through this enforced isolation, for which there is no judicial mandate, though she is in judicial custody”.
Recently, two members of the Commission had met Sharmila in Imphal. They had found her to be frail but alert. Sharmila did not complain of any physical ill-treatment though she repeatedly said that she was rarely allowed visitors when others in custody routinely received visits by their family members and friends.
The state government could not give any satisfactory reply to the Commission on this egregious exception made to the practice in her case, but was informed that permission to meet her must be issued by either the chief minister or the deputy chief minister.
The 41-year-old Sharmila, called the “Iron Lady of Manipur”, has been on a hunger strike since 2000, the longest by any under the sun, demanding the repeal of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958.
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