[ ::: ♥Keep_Mailing♥ ::: ]™ Fwd: {Desi_Pardesi} Iron Lady of Manipur

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From: "Deepak Punjabi indigoblue2005@yahoo.com [desi_pardesi]"
<desi_pardesi@yahoogroups.com>
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2016 05:39:06 +0000 (UTC)
Subject: {Desi_Pardesi} Iron Lady of Manipur
To:


Irom Sharmila's 16-Year Hunger Strike Comes To An End
By John Kuroski on August 9, 2016STRDEL/AFP/Getty ImagesIrom Sharmila
(center) is greeted by her supporters following her release from a
hospital jail in Imphal, India on August 20, 2014.Today, after 16
years of fasting, Indian political activist Irom Sharmila took a taste
of honey and ended her historic hunger strike.
The "Iron Lady of Manipur," now 44, began her fast on November 5,
2000, just days after Indian paramilitary forces gunned down ten
civilians in Malom, a small town in the northeastern state of Manipur.
The area has long been a battleground for ethnic separatists and
government forces that have come under fire for human rights abuses
carried out while suppressing said insurgency.After those ten
civilians were caught in the crossfire (or knowingly gunned down,
depending on who you ask), Sharmila refused to eat, drink, comb her
hair, or look in a mirror until the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act
(AFSPA) was repealed.That law, passed in 1958, gives military forces
operating in "disturbed areas" (like Manipur) extraordinary powers to
squash any kind of rebellion. Of course, many groups such as Amnesty
International claim that the AFSPA has actually "enabled serious human
rights violations…and shielded those responsible."It was precisely
these abuses that Sharmila sought to end when she stopped eating in
November 2000. Just days after she did so, authorities were able to
arrest her under an Indian law that forbids suicide attempts — and
they were able to force feed her via a tube inserted through her
nose.Over the next 16 years, this pattern played out again and again,
as Sharmila was arrested, force-fed, eventually released, then
arrested again after continuing to refuse to eat.Throughout that time,
Sharmila became a hero in India and around the world, receiving South
Korea's Gwanju Prize for Human Rights as well as a lifetime
achievement award from the Asian Human Rights Commission, in addition
to other accolades.But today, that historic fast came to an end — just
as a new career for Sharmila begins. The AFSPA remains in place, but
Sharmila has made it clear that she broke her fast so she can run in
the Manipur state elections held in early 2017 and end the AFSPA in
the political arena."I need power to remove this act," Sharmila said
at a press conference just after her release. "I am the real
embodiment of revolution."



https://www.facebook.com/deepak.punjabi.73

Deepak Punjabi

Baguio City

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