Last update - 00:00 16/12/2007
Disabled advocacy group: We'll take to the streets if gov't ignores us
By Ruth Sinai, Haaretz Correspondent
An advocacy group for disabled people said on Sunday it will take to the streets if the government remains unwilling to meet with its representatives and discuss ways to improve living conditions for hundreds of thousands of disabled Israelis.
The group members threatened to undertake a popular struggle, similar to the protest campaigns that they led in 1999 and 2001.
The Campaign for Handicapped Persons in Israel said, "Olmert and his government ignore us deliberately, an attitude which puts a lid on our endeavors to promote our integration in society."
Yoav Kraim, one of the leaders of the group, said that over the past few months they have continuously asked to meet with officials from the Treasury, the Industry, Trade and Labor Ministry and the Prime Minister's Office but were turned down each time.
The current campaign was sparked by an equality watchdog report, issued earlier this month, which states that the status of disabled people in Israel is the worst in the Western world and that at least half of them do not graduate high school.
Campaign chairman Roni Schechter said, "The government cannot publicize such harsh findings and then ignore them. Our leaders should be held accountable for our condition," he said.
The group says it is protesting Treasury policies to extend the freeze on disability allowances until 2010, to forestall the implementation of a law enabling disabled students to be educated in ordinary schools, to hamper the rehabilitation of mental patients outside asylums and to refrain from instigating a reform to allow the disabled to work without fear of losing their benefits.
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