Panel urges India to scrap Armed Forces Special Powers Act

Panel urges India to scrap Armed Forces Special Powers Act

By Iftikhar Gilani

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007%5C03%5C04%5Cstory_4-3-2007_pg7_34

NEW DELHI: The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) on Saturday concluded two days of public hearings in India by calling on New Delhi to scrap a draconian law that affords the military sweeping powers to curb insurgencies.

The hearings represented part of the ongoing fact finding mission conducted by the Panel, comprising eight independent legal experts appointed by the Geneva-based Commission in 2005, on the experience of terrorism and counter-terrorism measures in South Asia, within its broader mandate of researching the global impact of terrorism and counter-terrorism measures on the rule of law, human rights and humanitarian law.

Chairing the Panel was South Africa's Arthur Chaskalson, the country's former chief justice and first president of the country's Constitutional Court. Also representing the Panel was Thailand's Vitit Muntarbhorn, a professor of law at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University and United Nations expert on human rights in North Korea. The Panel confirmed that its members had held private meetings with senior Indian government officials, including Home Minister Shivraj Patil and National Security Advisor MK Narayanan, to pres for a repeal of the 1958 Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA).

Addressing a press conference, Chaskalson said: "We informed the Indian government that there was a broad consensus that recommendations of the review committee to repeal" the AFSPA should be given effect. The AFSPA was originally designed to stem strife in India's remote northeast by permitting the military to arrest without warrant and shoot-to-kill known militants. However, the Act was later extended to Indian-held Kashmir to fight the Islamist separatist insurgency that has, since 1989, been fighting New Delhi's rule of the disputed state.

A government forum last year also called for the scrapping of the law, while Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh had promised a review of the Act following the widespread protests after Indian soldiers allegedly raped and murdered a 32-year-old rights activist last July in the country's troubled Manipur state.

Chaskalson also said that the Panel had discussed human rights violations committed during the Gujarat communal riots that left 2,00 people, mostly Muslims, dead.

"We specifically asked the government officials about the reports of human rights violations in the Gujarat riots." While recognising important safeguards in India's anti-terror laws, he went on to say that the Panel had found that legal frameworks, such as the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA) and the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA), had led to serious human rights violations throughout the country.

Civil society groups from Jammu and Kashmir, Chattisgarh, Manipur and Jharkhand had earlier told the Panel hearing that Indian authorities routinely misused and abused counter-terrorism measures. They charged New Delhi with engaging in excessive application of these laws in states not affected by terrorism and with using them in a discriminatory manner to target minority communities and those belonging to lower castes.

Thus the Panel concluded that the existence of too many anti-terror laws often proved counter-productive, leading many communities, especially within the South Asian context, to feel alienated and persecuted. "Instead of isolating terrorist suspects, it (the abuse of anti-terror laws) exacerbates rather than reduces tensions and violence," said Chaskalson.

He went on to say: "The Panel is of the view that counter-terrorism measures in South Asia (in order to be effective) should go in conformity with the international human rights standards." Stressing that the Panel had concluded that adequate intelligence provided the key to improved security, which was only possible when the public had complete faith in the state apparatus, Chaskalson concluded by saying: "We are not here to pronounce judgment on how terror laws are being applied on the ground but to understand if there are checks and balances and if they can be tested against international standards." The Panel has also toured other parts of South Asia, including Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, the Maldives and Nepal. It has now left India for Pakistan to conduct public hearings in Islamabad.

It will issue its global report on terrorism, counter-terrorism and human rights towards the end of 2007. Meanwhile, AFP quoted a political analyst from Delhi University, AS Ojha, as welcoming the Panel's calls for India to repeal AFSPA, which he said had been borrowed heavily from laws passed during the British colonial era and represented a "dark legacy". "It's not only the ICJ but many global forums which have said its repeal will solve half of the region's problems," he added.

---

All new Yahoo! Mail

---

Get news delivered. Enjoy RSS feeds right on your Mail page.