Carrying signs while shouting slogans or using sign language, about 1,000 people — most of them physically challenged — took to the streets in Taipei yesterday to express their anger at what they said was a lack of accessible facilities for disabled people, despite requirements in the law.
Carrying giant banners reading: “No inaccessibility in the next 100 years” and “Accessibility is our basic right,” the protesters departed from Taipei Main Station in rainy weather, either marching or rolling their wheelchairs, shouting or signing their anger.
Organizers said the demonstrators began their march at the station because the Taiwan Railroad Administration is one of the government agencies that is doing the worst job of creating accessible environments for people with physical disabilities.
Photo: Wang Min-wei, Taipei Times
The demonstrators went to the Executive Yuan, the Control Yuan, the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Education to submit their petition, before the parade ended with a rally on Ketagalan Boulevard in front of the Presidential Office.
“This is the first time that people with such diverse categories of disabilities have taken to the streets together. We are here to show our -determination to fight for our rights and to let to government see the needs of people with disabilities,” the march spokesman, Chang Tsung-chieh (張宗傑), told the media before the march began. “People with disabilities want equal rights in transportation, education, employment and all aspects of life.”
One of the organizers, Liu Chun-lin (劉俊麟), who uses a wheelchair, said that despite requirements in the People with Disabilities Rights Protection Act (身心障礙者權益保障法), it is still difficult for people in wheelchairs to access many buildings, including government offices.
Demonstrators were upset when they asked to use the toilet at the Control Yuan, but were rejected.
“This is just an example of how government institutions fail to cater to the needs of the physically challenged,” Liu said. “They [the Control Yuan] said that we should prepare our own portable toilets — but how could we afford that?”
Although the interior ministry allowed the demonstrators to use its facilities, those in wheelchairs complained that, while the ministry is in charge of welfare for the disabled, its own toilet facilities failed to meet the legal requirements for accessibility that the ministry itself established.
“If the interior ministry itself cannot -fulfill the legal requirements for -accessible toilets, what can we expect from other government agencies?” asked Huang Chih-chien (黃智堅), another organizer, who uses a wheelchair.
Department of Social Affairs Director Huang Pi-hsia (黃碧霞) came out to meet the demonstrators, took their petition and promised to call a meeting with other government authorities to discuss better protection for people with disabilities.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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