Disabled. Metropolitan inaccessibility Rome, yet another complaint to the Prosecutor's Office
Disability and work, meeting with the Undersecretary for Welfare
24 July 2020
Guarantee on disability aids, the Antitrust affirms the right to immediate assistance
27 July 2020
The systematic inaccessibility of subway stations in Rome has exceeded all limits. Public service disruption and private violence. The writer presents today to the Public Prosecutor's Office at the Court of Rome the third complaint in 13 months.
ATAC, underground running out
Summer 2019 it is remembered by the Romans for the scorching heat but also for the systematic inaccessibility of public transport on the subway. The elevators of line A have been stopped for a year, those of line B running out, in particular on the stretch from Roma Termini to Eur-Laurentina, in both directions.
Égalité, through the writer, filed a complaint for public service interruption on 11.6.19. With subsequent integration, on 12.6.19, through a lawsuit for private violence. Towards the legal representatives and managers of ATAC and the company appointed by it to manage the maintenance of the underground stations.
The virus of starvation
The complaints of 2019 did not appear to have led to any results. In fact, the absolute starvation of both the Public Prosecutor's Office and the judicial police authorities, both of the ATAC and of the company that should provide for the maintenance of its stations. And finally the Municipality of Rome, whose councilor for mobility does not seem to have moved a leaf.
In the last weeks there was an opportunity to verify, indeed to suffer, repeated interruptions of public service on both lines A and B of the Rome underground. Until you reach the peak, on 21.7.20, you even find the Roma Termini station - at the base of the largest railway station in Italy - with a connecting lift between line A and line B blocked without warning.
Today, 24.7.20, The public metropolitan transport service on line A in Rome is interrupted without notice - for people with motor disabilities or other needs - between Termini station and Valle Aurelia (provided that this last station is accessible, data not available ). The lift at the Cipro station is broken as well as the stair lifts in Lepanto and Flaminio, Ottaviano unavailable due to the absence of an operator.
Stop Apartheid!
#StopApartheid. Like the blacks in the USA up to the uprising for the assertion of their rights, the disabled and mothers with pushchairs in tow, the elderly and the sick today in Italy are systematically denied the possibility of getting on public transport. Subways without elevators, bus without platforms or with broken platforms, courier for inaccessible inter-provincial journeys, train stations, even urban ones, not equipped (like most of the carriages).
This form of apartheid constitutes a clear violation of the principles of equal opportunity and non-discrimination stated in the UN Convention for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, CRPD, 2006), which Italy implemented on 15.5.2009.
Until when?
Dario Dongo
Dario Dongo, lawyer and journalist, PhD in international food law, founder of WIISE (FARE - GIFT - Food Times) and Égalité.
