Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya: “In Belarus, many people have needs that have remained invisible to the regime for years. People with disabilities do not require special privileges to live fully – they require only fair and accessible conditions: healthcare, education, the ability to move around, work, and participate in public life.
What is routine for some of us is a daily struggle for others: how to see a doctor, how to get a child with special needs into school, how to leave one’s home when the ramp exists only on paper and public transport is not accessible. These are limitations the system has chosen to ignore.
On top of this, people with disabilities also face repression. According to the Viasna Human Rights Center, as of May this year, there were at least nine political prisoners with disabilities in Belarus, some of whom were released after so-called pardons. There are those who died behind bars – Ihar Lednik and Mikalai Klimovich. And adding to this horror, in 2021, the Office for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was liquidated. This only shows how indifferent the regime is toward Belarusians.
Equal opportunities are not ‘special treatment’. The state must see every one of its citizens and create conditions in which people do not have to beg for basic things”.
