In July, the whole world celebrates Disability Pride Month – a month of support and recognition of the achievements of people with disabilities, but the acute problem of accessible urban environment continues to infringe on the rights of Crimeans with disabilities. The Crimean branch of the international movement for the deoccupation of Crimea #LIBERATECRIMEA told about it to ‘Krym.Realii’.
According to the activists of #LIBERATECRIMEA, even in the Crimean capital the issues of accessibility of the urban environment are massively ignored. ‘Before the occupation of Crimea by Russia, the issues of accessibility of the environment in Crimea were given huge attention, a lot was done so that wheelchair users could move freely around the urban space. After 2014, the Russian authorities began to ‘master’ huge budget money on reconstruction projects. For example, in Simferopol they reconstructed the embankments of the Salgir and the Small Salgir, not only the quality of work is low, but also, having destroyed the old ramps and other devices for the passage of a wheelchair, they did not provide new ones!’, – said the Crimean branch of #LIBERATECRIMEA.
Activists note that many underground passages in Crimean cities are not equipped according to the requirements of the accessible environment.
‘The Russian administrations of Crimean cities simply neglect the requirements of accessible environment. Reconstruction projects are approved without taking into account these requirements. The Prosecutor’s Office, as a supervisory body, is also blind in this matter. In fact, the destruction of independent civil society in Crimea now makes it impossible to defend even the rights of wheelchair users. Now the number of wheelchair users in Crimea is growing at the expense of former participants of the so-called ‘SMO’, but no one in government offices cares about this. There is a strong impression that officials deliberately do not work on the accessibility of the environment, so that wheelchair users would be less ‘flickering’ in the streets. This is the cynicism of the Russian authorities in Crimea’, – noted in the Crimean branch of #LIBERATECRIMEA.