Human Rights groups gear up for anti-AFSPA campaign
Source: Hueiyen News Service / Newmai News Network
Imphal, June 06 2012:
Human rights groups in Manipur are gearing up to strengthen the campaign initiated around the globe to do something on the dreadful Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) .
A source from the Human Rights Alert informed NNN tonight that rights groups in Manipur under the aegis of Civil Society Coalition on Human Rights (CSCHR) are all out to campaign in this connection that some concrete step is taken by the international body regarding the AFSPA.
The source then clarifies that the CSCHR had never announced to start agitation from June as quoted in a section of local media recently.
"We can only campaign against AFSPA at this juncture so that the Human Rights Council of the United Nations does some drastic step on the Act," said the source.
Mention may be made that the government of India had assured the Human Rights Council of the United Nations to give a response to the issue of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) 1958 before the month of September 2012 during its examination of India at its second cycle of the Universal Periodic Review in May 24, 2012 at Geneva.
This is the first time that the UN body has sought a remedial action from India after the repeal of the draconian law has been recommended by countries like Slovakia, Switzerland and France.
Recommendations which included ratifying the Convention against torture, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and end impunity for security forces accused of committing human rights violation were also stated to have been forwarded by eighty countries.
The Indian representatives had not given any assurance about repealing the AFSPA, but had only stated that the government of India would give a response to the issue of AFSPA before the month of September 2012 .
The government of India was represented by 19 members at the UN meeting while Babloo Loitongbam, executive director, Human Rights Alert and Jiten Yumnam, secretary of the Citizens Concern for Dams and Development also attended the UN meeting as representatives of CSCHR.
It may be mentioned that a joint stakeholders' report was submitted by the CSCHR to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights as supplementary information for the consideration of the Human Rights Council during its examination of India at its second cycle of the Universal Periodic Review.
The CSCHR is a coalition of eighteen civil society organizations in Manipur formed in 2010 to ensure better coordination and collective work among civil society organizations and other actors seeking to engage with the human rights framework, including the UN system for the promotion and protection of human rights in Manipur.
The issues put up by CSCHR as information for consideration of the UN Human Rights Council during its examination of India at the second cycle of the Universal Periodic Review, with suggestions, questions and recommendations to the Permanent Missions to the United Nations at Geneva included International Human Rights Treaties and the AFSPA with special reference to the right to self determination and right to life; extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, arbitrary detention, torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and enforced disappearances; development and indigenous peoples in Manipur; extractive industry, oil exploration in Manipur and related violations; and the rights of the indigenous child.
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