Indian woman completes 'ten year hunger strike'

A human-rights activist in northeast India who is dubbed the "Iron Lady of Manipur" has completed 10 years on hunger strike and vowed to continue her protest, her supporters said on Wednesday. Irom Chanu Sharmila, from the remote state of Manipur, which borders Burma, began her fast on November 2, 2000 after witnessing the killing of 10 people by the army at a bus stop near her home.

Now 38, she was arrested shortly after beginning her protest – on charges of attempted suicide – and was sent to a prison hospital where she began a daily routine of being force-fed vitamins and nutrients via a nasal drip. Ms Sharmila is frequently set free by local courts, but once outside she resumes her hunger strike and is rearrested. She is campaigning for the repeal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) that enables security forces to shoot on sight and arrest anybody without a warrant in impoverished and heavily militarized Manipur.

"She decided to continue with her fast-unto-death mission until the draconian legislation is repealed by the government," said Babloo Loitongbam from local human rights group Human Rights Alert. "She made her intentions pretty clear as she completed 10 years of hunger strike," Babloo said after visiting Ms Sharmila on the 10th anniversary of the start of the fast on Tuesday. "Militancy is still thriving. In other words, the Special Powers Act has miserably failed."

AFSPA was passed in 1990 to grant security forces special powers and immunity from prosecution to deal with raging insurgencies in the northeast of India and in Kashmir in the northwest. The act is a target for local human rights groups and international campaigners such as Amnesty International, which says the law has been an excuse for extrajudicial killings. Amnesty has campaigned vociferously against the legislation, which it sees as a stain on India's democratic credentials and a violation of international human rights law.