Court Orders Release of Hunger-Striking Indian Activist

New Delhi: A court in the northeastern Indian state of Manipur ordered the release of Irom Sharmila, an activist who has been imprisoned on charges of attempted suicide since she began a hunger strike nearly 14 years ago.

Supporters welcomed the dismissal of the charges against Sharmila, 42, who has become a steady voice against heavy-handed security tactics in insurgency-racked Manipur. She began the hunger strike to protest a law that gives impunity to armed forces serving there.

Khaidem Mani, her lawyer, said Sharmila would be released within a day or two, once the chief judicial magistrate in the state capital of Imphal approved the court's order.

But Babloo Loitongbam, a human rights advocate and adviser to Sharmila, said it was possible the government would stay the order to try to continue her imprisonment.

The law under which Sharmila was charged, which makes it a crime to attempt suicide, has drawn harsh criticism, including from the government's Law Commission, and the sessions judge in the case ruled that there was no evidence that she was attempting suicide.

"Serving solely on nose feeding without taking any food for over 13 years negates the very feeble presumption of intention of fasting unto death since the petitioner is not refusing nose feeding," said an order quoted in The Times of India.

Sharmila's struggle began after she witnessed the armed forces killing civilians in her village near Imphal in November 2000 after an explosion there.

Last year, members of India's National Human Rights Commission visited Sharmila for the first time in the security ward of a hospital in Imphal, where she has been fed through a nasal tube. The commission announced that the conditions of her imprisonment were a "breach of India's obligations under international human rights standards and principles."

Loitongbam said the visit by the commission prompted the filing of formal charges by the police for the first time in March and the subsequent dismissal by the sessions court judge.

Though Loitongbam lauded Sharmila's "complete selfless sacrifice" for having "given 14 years of the prime of her life," he said her case had had little resonance in India's mainstream.

"The middle class in India has had a very lukewarm response," he said. "They feel, sort of, that this little girl is making such a sacrifice, but they don't want to take power from the armed forces in these border areas."