While the US media are relatively silent about the Paralympics, other nations’ media are paying closer attention. Action online will try to bring your attention to this coverage as we find it.
Here is an article from The Independent of the UK:
Prejudice & the Paralympics
The Games are another chance for China to show the world what it can do. Yet this is a country where disabled people are shunned. By Clifford CoonanWheelchair-friendly London cabs with distinctive Beijing taxi livery are waiting outside the Bird’s Nest stadium, buses fitted with ramps cruise the city and all over the capital there are banners and bunting proclaiming the arrival of 4,200 disabled athletes for the Paralympics, which start this weekend.
But it is not until you are inside the Paralympic Village itself that you see a single Chinese person in a wheelchair or one with any other obvious disabilities; China’s 83 million disabled are a largely invisible presence in a country where disabilities are viewed as a source of shame in some families, particularly in urban areas, and where discrimination is widespread.
The Paralympics are being hailed as an opportunity for China to deal with these deep prejudices and as a catalyst for improving the situation for people with disabilities in China. Experience in other cities hosting the Paralympics has shown that the situation for the disabled improves after the Games. Cynics in the city say that the Paralympics will do as much to change prejudices against the disabled in China as the Olympics did to improve human rights. Precious little, in fact.
To read the rest of the article, go here.
