Recommended Reading, June 28

Warning: Offsite links are not safe spaces. Articles and comments in the links may contain ableist, sexist, and other -ist language and ideas of varying intensity. Opinions expressed in the articles may not reflect the opinions held by the compiler of the post and links are provided as topics of interest and exploration only. I attempt to provide extra warnings for material like extreme violence/rape; however, your triggers/issues may vary, so please read with care.

G20 Protest Disability-Related News Stories

Image description below

Photo by Hillary Lindsay for the Toronto Media Co-Op, used under a Creative Commons License.

Emomotimi Azorbo, a Deaf man, was arrested in Toronto for stepping off the sidewalk and being unable to hear the police’s demands that he get back on the sidewalk. The police would not allow his friend, who knew Sign, to community with him, and handcuffed Azorbo, which prevented him from communicating with anyone.

According to the Globe and Mail, the Canadian Hearing Society’s Gary Malkowski said the police failure to allow an interpreter who was not an officer to assist communication violates Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Ubyssey [University of British Columbia Student Newspaper]: Deaf man released on bail: Exclusive Photos of g20 arrest

“It was a great deal of misunderstanding from both sides,” he said. “[Azorbo] bumped into police…and the police starting yelling at them to get back, he didn’t understand. His friends were trying to tell the police that he was deaf, trying to explain the communication barrier.”

“[The police] were about to let him leave, but then he got into their faces, and then was tackled,” added Thibault. “I think he was just intimidated.”

Toronto Mobilize: Support Emomotimi!

The Spoke: Deaf Demonstrator Released on Bail [in PDF, Text only transcription]

Toronto Media Co-Op (Grassroots Media): An Accessible Movement

Disabled people were setting the pace of Friday’s anti-G20 march, says Andrew Mindscenthy.

Mindszenthy is a member of Disability Action Movement Now (DAMN), a cross-disability coalition that includes disabled people and people affected by ableism.

Globe and Mail (Mainstream Media): Deaf man arrested in G20 protest granted bail

Toronto Star (Mainstream Media): Deaf protester expected in court today

Key Quote: “Handcuffing a deaf person is like putting duct tape over a hearing person’s mouth,” he said. “It’s a violation of their human rights.”

The above links focus specifically on disability-related news stories. For grass-roots and up-to-the-minute report on the G20 protests, the Toronto Police State, the 4 a.m. arrests of social justice activists, etc:

Rabble’s Staff Blog [Independent Media]

Steve Paikin’s twitter feed [Journalist]

The Toronto Media Co-Op (part of the Dominion newsgroup) has up-to-the-minute updates [Grass-Roots Media] (Community Organizers thrown in Unmarked Police Vans en Route to Press Conference on Targeted Arrests)

Illegal Soul is bfp’s tumblr, where she is posting updates from protestors she knows in Toronto.

Sabotabby is posting updates from Toronto.

Upcoming Events

Disability News Asia: First Conference in New Zealand on Access Tourism

October 4 2010 has been set as the date for the first conference in New Zealand on Access Tourism.

The conference will look at various aspects of Access Tourism, including some of the following:

The current situation NZ and worldwide, website access and information best practice, government strategy, policy, and obligations, best practice in transport , accommodation, and attractions access, training for access in the tourism and hospitality sector, legal aspects, and quality rating for Access Tourism products in New Zealand.

Website: Access Tourism NZ 2010 Conference

Disability News Asia: 3rd International Universal Design Conference: Hamamatsu 2010

The 3rd International Conference for Universal Design in 2010 will be held in Hamamatsu City, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan, for 5 days from 30th of October – 3rd of November 2010.

Petitions

United Kingdom: Against DWP Reforms for the genuinely sick and disabled

We believe that the constant vilification of sick and disabled claimants as work shy scroungers by the press has a great deal to do with increasing levels of harassment.

If you’re on Delicious, feel free to tag entries ‘disfem’ or ‘disfeminists,’ or ‘for:feminists’ to bring them to our attention! Link recommendations can also be emailed to recreading[@]disabledfeminists[.]com

About Ouyang Dan

is an extremely proggy-liberal, formerly single mommy, Native American, invisibly disabled, U.S. Navy Veteran, social justice activist and aspiring freelance writer currently living in South Korea on Uncle Sam's dime. She has a super human tolerance for caffeine and chocolate and believes she should use those powers for good. She said should. She is not a concise person, and sometimes comes on a little aggressively in comments. Sometimes her right arm still twitches when military brass walks past her, but she would rather be reading YA Lit or pwning n00bs. She can be found being cliche about music, overthinking pop culture, and grumbling about whatever else suits her fancy at her personal website, random babble.... She also writes about military issues for Change.org's Women's Rights blog. If you have something interesting to say email her at ouyangdan [at] disabledfeminists [dot] com. Lawyers in Italy looking to hold lottery winnings in her bank account may wait longer for reply.

One thought on “Recommended Reading, June 28

  1. Just to let you know, the Toronto Star link no longer directs to the original article. It now directs to a more general article about 4 G-20 Ringleaders being expected in court, with only a small mention of Emomotimi Azorbo. Google, however, has a cache of the original article available herefor now.

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