Citizens with disabilities, on the occasion of the International and European Day of Persons with Disabilities on December 3, will take place on December 2 at 11:00 in the morning, an event to assert their rights outside the Presidential Palace.
As stated in a statement by the Cyprus Confederation of Disabled People's Organisations (CYSOA), citizens with disabilities "will protest against the flagrant violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms experienced by the very state from which they expect protection, as is the case in all favoured democratic states".
It is noted that among the key issues of concern to the disabled citizens' movement at this time is our country's defiant refusal to comply with the recommendations of the United Nations for the realization of the rights of persons with disabilities.
A constant goal of the disability movement, it is stated, is to ensure the active and full involvement of citizens with disabilities and their organizations in decision-making processes on issues that directly or indirectly affect them, as well as to achieve deinstitutionalization and integration into the community, the attendance of children with disabilities in mainstream education, the realization of the right to health and rehabilitation, freedom of expression and access to information, access to the built environment, public media
"Forgotten by the state, persons with disabilities do not receive answers to their letters either from the President of the Republic himself or from the ministers of his government and state agencies to their just demands," it is noted.
On the other hand, the statement of the CPSOA says, persons with disabilities and their organizations "have not received any financial or other support for the purposes of addressing the health crisis, the economic shortage, the energy crisis, the poverty and the poverty that plagues first and foremost persons with disabilities and their families, who are plagued by feelings of complete abandonment by the state."
Furthermore, it is stated that people with disabilities "are not treated as human rights holders, but as objects of pity and charity, they are captive to the 'radio-marathon' policies of the interests and expediencies of politicians and state officials as well as public broadcasting".
It is no coincidence, it is pointed out, that the proportion of social benefits, grants and other meagre allowances provided to certain ONLY groups of people with disabilities is the second lowest among the 27 EU Member States, while services for people with disabilities are almost "non-existent".
KYSOA calls on all organisations of people with disabilities and bodies that play a role in the socio-political events of our country and Cypriot society at large, to rally with it for "the abolition of degrading assessment procedures, discrimination on the basis of disability, age, ethnic origin, colour, etc., the social inequalities, social exclusion, humiliation, misery and marginalisation experienced by these citizens in our country, the policies of segregation of children with disabilities and their exclusion from education, as well as the institutional and segregationist structures maintained by the Cypriot State itself".
Finally, it is noted that "with the refusal of the State to recognise in practice the CPSOA as its statutory social partner on disability issues and the representative organisations of people with disabilities as the ones responsible for consulting with the state services on issues concerning the citizens they represent, an attempt is being made to put obstacles in the way of achieving real integration and equal participation of citizens with disabilities in the community, but also to silence them so that they do not disturb and "spoil the street" by revealing the adverse conditions experienced by people with disabilities.
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