Media ignores Irom Sharmila but focuses on Anna Hazare

Civil rights campaigners in Manipur are upset with the mainstream Indian media for blowing up activist Anna Hazare’s antigraft fast that entered its sixth day and ignoring the over decade-long hunger strike by Irom Chanu Sharmila against rights violations by the security forces in the region. A civil rights campaigner said that there is a general sense of feeling that the people of Northeast have always been neglected, discriminated, and looked down upon by the rest of India, including the mainstream media. Anna’s fast has hogged media headlines and Irom Sharmila is fasting for nearly 11 years. Irom Sharmila (‘Iron Lady of Manipur’) began her fast on November 02, 2000 after witnessing the killing of 10 people by the Army at a bus stop near Imphal. She was arrested shortly after beginning her protest – on charges of attempted suicide. She was sent to prison hospital where she began a daily routine of being force – fed via a nasal drip. 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 AFSPA (Armed Forces Special Powers Act) that enables security forces to shoot at sight and arrest anybody without a warrant. A local human rights association in Manipur suggested that the attitude of the Indian public is sad in the sense that something happening in the northeast is seldom recognised by the mainstream media. The whole attitude is discriminatory. AFSPA was passé din 1990 to grant security forces special powers immunity from prosecution to deal with tagging insurgencies in the Northeastern states and in Kashmir. The act is a target for local human rights groups and international campaigners, such as Amnesty International, which say the law has been an excuse for extra judicial killings. Amnesty International has campaigns vociferously against the legislation, which it sees as a stain on India’s democratic credentials and a violation of international human rights laws.