Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi urged India on Sunday to revoke a controversial law giving sweeping powers to security forces and which human rights activists say is a licence to kill indiscriminately.
The Iranian lawyer issued her appeal after visiting 34-year-old Irom Sharmila who has been on hunger strike for six years demanding the scrapping of a 1958 law which applies to parts of India's restive northeast and Kashmir.
Sharmila, who is in a New Delhi hospital and has been force-fed by nasal tube, became an iconic figure in the north-eastern state of Manipur after starting a fast in late 2000 when soldiers shot 10 young men at a bus stop in a small town.
"I ask the Indian government to change the law and to release Sharmila," Ebadi said after meeting Sharmila - detained in a government hospital and charged with attempted suicide.
"I generally don't talk to people in the government but her fast deteriorating condition forces me to meet with government representatives," she told reporters.
The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act provides almost unlimited powers to the security forces to shoot or arrest anybody without a warrant. Human rights groups say it has given the army licence to kill, torture and rape with impunity.
Ebadi, winner of the 2003 Nobel Prize, said the law was "unjust" and "arbitrary" and that the Indian government should realise that if Sharmila died, there would be a thousand more people to replace her.
"It is the duty of the armed forces to provide security to the people and not kill innocent people," the lawyer said. Manipur lies 2,400 km (1,500 miles) from New Delhi on India's border with Myanmar. An armed separatist rebellion began in the 1960s and has left around 20,000 people dead.
The maximum jail term for the offence of attempted suicide is one year. Police have been releasing her each year and then rearresting her.
"I thank Ebadi for her support as it is very valuable for us and I am very happy that she came here today," Sharmila told Reuters from her hospital bed.
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