[nagdu] Israel turning a blind eye to discrimination against blind

Sat Dec 29 20:00:42 UTC 2012

Israel turning a blind eye to discrimination against blind

Minister revokes officials’ power to punish drivers who refuse to allow seeing-eye dogs on public transport.

By Talila Nesher | Dec.27, 2012 

Source: http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/israel-turning-a-blind-eye-to-discrimination-against-blind.premium-1.490212

Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz revoked the regulation giving his ministry the authority to file charges against public transportation drivers, such as bus and taxi drivers, who violate the law by refusing to transport blind persons with their seeing-eye dogs. As a result of the revocation of the order, the Transportation Ministry has stopped handling complaints from the blind in such cases. 

“We are a blind couple and my wife uses a seeing-eye dog,” said Moshe Darshan from Jerusalem. “From time to time drivers refuse to transport her and mostly evade [her] so she is unable to get their details. In recent years we have succeeded in getting the details of three such drivers from cab companies, and they were put on trial,” he said. 

At the beginning of 2012, Darshan’s wife Ora was refused once again: “She filed a new complaint to the complaints department of the Transportation Ministry, and it was transferred to the investigative department.” She was later invited to give evidence and the case was passed on to the prosecutors to file charges against the driver. But Darshan says a friend of his wife who was scheduled to testify was suddenly notified in a letter from the ministry that the file had been closed. “The ministry told us the regulation had been canceled and thousands of files were closed. The regulation doesn’t apply only to the blind, by the way, but to all citizens who complain about drivers of public transportation,” said Darshan. 

Ora Darshan was allowed to appeal the closing of the case, “but they told us the appeal was superfluous since thousands of files were closed,” he said. Out of some 24,000 blind people and those with limited vision in Israel, only about 250 − 60 of whom are disabled IDF veterans − use seeing-eye dogs today, according to figures from the Social Affairs Ministry. But these people report discrimination on a daily basis on public transportation. 

“It happens sometimes that cab [drivers] refuse to carry me twice a day,” said Yarden Regael from Kibbutz Heftziba, who has been blind since birth and uses a seeing-eye dog. She says it is often humiliating, and sometimes a cab company will tell her to wait until they find a driver willing to take her, as if she is at the mercy of the good will of the drivers. The drivers also sometimes ask for more money − but by law seeing-eye dogs are exempt from payment on public transportation. 

The ministry confirmed it was no longer investigating such cases on a temporary basis. The Transportation Ministry said the order was recently revoked as part of a cabinet decision to replace all such old supervisory orders in government ministries with laws and regulations. The ministry is now working on formulating new regulations to replace the orders from 1957. 

Within a few days, the Public Security Ministry is supposed to reauthorize investigators to investigate such complaints against taxi drivers. The new regulations will allow investigations involving cases with the blind and their seeing-eye dogs, said the ministry. 

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