The Save Sharmila Solidarity Campaign is flagged off by Magsaysay Award Winner Sandeep Pandey in Srinagar.It will culminate at Imphal. The campaign, in which 20 persons are participating with an objective to express solidarity with Irom Sharmila[1], who has been on fast for the last 10 years demanding revocation of the AFSPA.
The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA), was passed on September 11, 1958, by the Parliament of India. It conferred special powers upon armed forces in what the act calls "disturbed areas" in the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura. It was later extended to Jammu and Kashmir as The Armed Forces (Jammu and Kashmir) Special Powers Act, 1990 in July 1990.
According to the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), in an area that is proclaimed as disturbed, an officer of the armed forces has powers to:
• Fire upon or otherwise use force, even to the causing of death, against any person who is acting in contravention of any law against assembly of five or more persons or possession of deadly weapons.
• To arrest without a warrant and with the use of necessary force anyone who has committed certain offenses or is suspected of having done so
• To enter and search any premise in order to make such arrests.
It gives Army officers legal immunity for their actions. There can be no prosecution, suit or any other legal proceeding against anyone acting under that law.
The campaign is headed by noted social activist Medha Patkar.
Related Facts
[1]Irom Sharmila Chanu (born March 14, 1972), also known as the "Iron Lady of Manipur" or "Menghoubi" ("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 India's northeast. Having refused food and water for more than 500 weeks, she has been called "the world's longest hunger striker".
