Thursday, July 02, 2015

AFSPA functioning without subordinate rules: Amnesty

DNA: New Delhi: Thursday, 02 July 2015.
Concluding that accountability was still missing for human rights violations in Jammu and Kashmir, a leading international civil rights watchdog here on Wednesday said even after 56 years of enactment of Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), there has been no attempt to frame rules for its operationalisation. "There has been no subordinate legislation or no statutory rules to operate the AFSPA," said Amnesty International researchers, while releasing a report 25-years of the AFSPA in Jammu and Kashmir.
Further, while the Disturbed Area Act (DAA), which enables operationalisation of the AFSPA has to undergo a mandatory review after every six months, the Amnesty has found that governments have hardly followed this legal recourse.
The 72-page report, titled 'Denied: Failures in accountability for human rights violations by security force personnel in Jammu and Kashmir' has analysed the legality of the AFSPA and also documented over 100 cases of human rights violations committed between 1990 and 2013. It also contains 58 case studies of alleged excesses by the armed forces in the state.
"One of the primary facilitators of impunity is the existence of Section 7 of the AFSPA under which security forces are protected from prosecution for alleged human rights violations. This legal provision mandates prior executive permission from central or state authorities for prosecution of a member of the security forces," the report reads.
Citing many instances where its RTI applications failed to get a response, Amnesty has also called for making the information about the cases pertaining to human rights violations in Jammu and Kashmir public.
While the report acknowledges progress on a few cases like the Machil "fake" encounter, where five soldiers were sentenced to life imprisonment, the report concludes that most cases involving areas where AFSPA is used go un-investigated. "The convictions in the Machil case were a welcome measure. But for justice to be consistently delivered, security force personnel accused of human rights violations should be prosecuted in civilian courts," said Divya Iyer, research manager, Amnesty International.