"A letter will be addressed and sent to the Prime Minister, home, law and DONER ministers to bring a Bill in the next session of Parliament for repealing AFSPA as military law and rule cannot co-exist side by side and put democratic functioning of governance on the backburner," church leader P B M Basaiawmoit said.
Citing the anti-AFSPA struggle by Irom Sharmila, he said that in August 2004, the executive committee of the National Council of Churches in India had written to the then President and PM to have the Act repealed. "Its Peoples' Forum Pre-Assembly and Quadrennial Assembly held in Bangalore in April 2012, had passed resolutions to the effect," he said.
"In 2005, the Justice Jeevan Reddy Commission of Enquiry had recommended that AFSPA be repealed and so did the UN special rapporteur on Human Rights, not once but twice. Many eminent persons had said that such a law, similar to military rule, has no place in a democracy. However, all this has fallen on deaf ears," the release read, adding that simultaneous public meetings would be held in the northeast to urge the Centre to repeal AFSPA.
Source: Morung Express
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