Thursday July 14, 2011

Concerns of the disabled

Wheel Power
By Anthony Thanasayan

The lack of sensitivity surrounding people with handicapping conditions is not just limited to the general public.

A MAJOR seminar involving local councils in Selangor took place in Petaling Jaya last month. The focus was on how to improve the quality of lives of Malaysians with disabilities in their constituencies.

Here are some of the chief concerns raised by the participants who included persons with disabilities in the round table discussions.

Lack of awareness

Despite a significant increase in awareness regarding disabled people over the past few years, participants felt that there was plenty of room for more non-disabled people to get to know about disability issues.

It was noted that the lack of sensitivity surrounding people with handicapping conditions was not just limited to the general public.

The Government, in particular the local authorities, have far to go in understanding and appreciating the needs of residents with disabilities, including the elderly.

The private sector is not much better. Businesses, developers and even professionals are also out of touch with disability issues. It was pointed out that this was obviously one of the main reasons why the needs of the disabled community were often sidelined.

Because of this complete disregard of disabled people’s basic needs such as access to buildings and the outside built environment, many of these vital facilities are not put in place.

Adding such facilities to buildings now can be expensive. However, that should not deter anyone or be used as an excuse for not righting a wrong.

With this background, the discussion groups stressed that the needs of the disabled should be an essential consideration in all the planning departments, especially among the local councils.

Monitoring and enforcement

Once the necessary disabled-friendly facilities are in place, there should be follow-ups to check for non-compliance. Local councils must ensure that new buildings without disability access are not approved. Parking lots for the disabled should only be used by physically disabled drivers. The authorities should take prompt action against abusers of such facilities by slapping the maximum compound. No discounts should be given. Vehicles of offenders should be towed away. Otherwise, there is no need to provide such facilities in the first place when the disabled themselves can’t use them.

Budget for the disabled

All local councils should set aside a generous budget for the needs of disabled residents. This is only fair considering that this important community has been left out for so long. Only with enough funds and prompt action will our society be able to “turn back the clock” in making things right for the handicapped in the area of development.

Get the designs right

Redevelopment projects for the handicapped should be comprehensive. Great care must be taken to ensure that all designs are uniform in terms of standards. For example, toilets for the disabled which carry different designs will only confuse users and stress them out. Every effort should be made to ensure that older designs are improved to meet present-day needs.

Feedback should be obtained from people with a wide variety of disabilities, to have a better understanding of their needs. Special attention should be given to pavements which must be friendly to both wheelchairs-users and the blind. This is a common oversight as some local councils only cater to one category of disability.

Connectivity of accessible points should also be carefully observed. It is common to find one stretch of pavement made for the disabled, and another neglected.

Maintenance of facilities for the handicapped is imperative in ensuring a barrier-free environment for all.

Feedback needed

Set up a technical disability group comprising end users. This is the most effective way to get projects going within a local council.

Ensure that there are representatives from a wide range of disabilities, for example, the blind, Deaf, wheelchairs users, people with walking difficulties, little people and Parkinson’s patients.

There is nothing like getting the proper input direct from the horse’s mouth. The committee must meet at least once a month to get the momentum going.

The Petaling Jaya City Council is, to my knowledge, the only local authority with this model. Efforts are currently underway to have similar committees in Selayang, Subang Jaya, Shah Alam and Klang soon.

709-This is Our Land

Truth that Cannot Be Covered - Bersih 2.0 09/07/2011

Bersih rally revealed lots of truth

Jeswan Kaur

| July 10, 2011

Going into denial seems to be the only way Najib could think of in reacting to the Bersih 2.0 rally.

COMMENT

The rakyat who turned up for the Bersih 2.0 rally yesterday were no criminals. Yet, the police and the Federal Reserve Unit officers treated them as such, kicking and punching some of the supporters of the rally.

An eyewitness shared an incident where a young man in his 20s was pounced upon by no less than 10 policemen who wrestled him down, twisting his arm.

The ambience that day was one of fright and intimidation with the police going berserk in preventing the huge crowd from walking up to the rally venue, the historical Stadium Merdeka.

Everywhere, the environment was polluted with tear gas and water cannon which the cops splashed with gay abandon at the crowd to force them to disperse. But all these failed to scare the people.

Indeed, conundrum would best describe the July 9 scenario in the city centre of Kuala Lumpur. The palpable chaotic situation was certainly not the people’s doing. The rakyat had turned up in good faith to support the Bersih 2.0 ‘Walk for Democracy’. The event was messed up by none other than the police.

Bersih 2.0 in respecting the Yang di-Pertuan Agong Tuanku Mizan Zainal Abidin’s call to maintain peace and harmony agreed to keep away from the streets and take the rally indoor, to Stadium Merdeka. But no thanks to the lies and manipulation by Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak, the Bersih 2.0 organisers were refused all access to the stadium.

The police meanwhile at the 11th hour offered to issue Bersih 2.0 a permit for the rally provided it was held outside Kuala Lumpur. Why did Najib and his ‘boys’ stab Bersih 2.0 in the back, an act typically reserved for the cowards?

It is not the Bersih 2.0 coalition but the Barisan Nasional government under Najib and the police who are to be blamed for the chaos that shrouded Kuala Lumpur for over eight hours on July 9.

From the streets to a closed environment – Bersih 2.0 was cooperating with the call to stay away from the roads. In fact, Ambiga even asked the police to map out the routes for it to walk on July 9 but the thuggie-styled police refused to cooperate.

Was Bersih 2.0 asking for much by requesting that the police cooperate with it? Why did Najib turn the entire rally into a topsy-turvy affair and get the Bersih 2.0 key players including chairperson Ambiga Sreenevasan arrested?

Had Ambiga harboured malicious intentions, she could have ambushed the government and sprung a surprise by bringing her supporters to the streets to rally.

However, for all intent and purposes, the ‘Walk for Democracy’ was paved with good intentions, that of wanting to raise public awareness and call for a reform of the electoral system.

Stop blaming Bersih 2.0 The mainstream media went to town reporting how businesses in the city centre were paralysed because of the rally. Motorists stuck in traffic jams were quick to blame Bersih 2.0 for the endless hours of delay they had to endure.

The truth is Bersih 2.0 is not to blame. The truth also is that the entire scenario was scarred by the police, when it blocked all entry points to Kuala Lumpur.

How could Najib forget that all Bersih 2.0 wanted was to walk in solidarity and hand over their memorandum for reforms to the electoral system Yang di-Pertuan Agong?

The fact of it all is that all that happened on July 9 was dictated by fear, that too on the part of the BN government and Najib. The fear of not being able to manipulate the electoral process and find themselves losing out to their arch enemy, the opposition Pakatan Rakyat prompted Najib to undertake the least intelligent measure to halt the rally.

Had the coalition been allowed to use the Stadium Merdeka, there would have been no complaints from traders of businesses being affected. Why then conveniently pass the blame to Bersih 2.0 and ask the coalition if it would shoulder the losses suffered by the traders?

Also, had the police the decency to oblige Ambiga and plan out the route for the walk, the supporters of democracy could have been spared the tear gas, water cannons, punching and kicking. Bersih 2.0 rally a success

The Bersih 2.0 steering committee estimated that 50,000 people had turned up for its ‘Walk for Democracy’. Maybe such a huge turnout is too much of a failure for the Inspector-General of Police Ismail Omar to admit, so he went on to claim it was a mere 6,000 who showed up.

To Najib, the number was small. Just how did he deduce this, when the entire city of Kuala Lumpur had come to a standstill and the IGP had to bring in just about all his men to unleash their terror on the supporters?

Going into denial seems to be the only way Najib could think of in reacting to the Bersih 2.0 rally. Instead, he heaped praise on participants of the National Cooperatives Day 2011 held in Putrajaya and said:

“It’s obvious that the thousands present today are against the illegal rally planned by a section of our community. If there are people who want to hold the illegal rally, there are even more who are against their plan.”

But what a surprise that the premier could not even reveal the number of participants who attended the National Cooperatives Day 2011. Yet, it pleased him that they stayed put in Putrajaya, maybe against their will.

A lot of the truth which the Bersih 2.0 rally has revealed will never be acknowledged by the Najib administration. One truth is that the Bersih 2.0 rally succeeded in getting its message across to the rakyat.

The other truth is that the people are no willing to tolerate the abuse and corruption the BN government indulges in during elections.

Another truth is that the persecution and repression used by Najib to get things his way is now passé. The rakyat is all out to seek the truth and as the July 9 walk showed, the truth is out there.

The chaos and fear of July 9 was all Najib’s doing. His band of Umnoputeras were out to create nothing less than ruckus, as seen from the showdown at Menara Maybank between Umno Youth and Bersih 2.0 on the day of the rally.

Likewise, all talks that the ‘Walk for Democracy’ was spearheaded by the opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim is bullocks. It was a walk to reclaim what rightfully belongs to the people, an electoral system free of manipulation.

As far as Bersih 2.0 is concerned, it is innocent. And it has succeeded in its mission, all thank you to the rakyat who turned up in full force yesteday.