How Do you Say Apartheid in French?

Editor's Note: Over the last few years of publishing Disability World, several readers have suggested taking occasional opinion polls about the most inaccessible places in the world, considering attitude and architecture as equal components. More than one individual has suggested Geneva would head the list, not just for its antiquarian physical concepts of access, but for its disdain towards the very idea. Unlike many places in the world that are inaccessible due to financial poverty, Geneva's inaccessibility, largely unchanged since the 1970s, seems to derive from some strange poverty of spirit.

The author of the following story, Dr. Federico Montero, is the latest addition to the disability and rehabilitation unit of the World Health Organization, headquartered in Geneva, along with the ILO and UN Commission on Human Rights. We hope publishing this example of inaccessibility of the spirit gives some grist to Geneva based disability rights organizations.

Dear Friends:
We know that to all of us who have a disability, have experienced moments that insult our dignity and violate our rights. Many of you have fought during many years for the rights of persons with disability and continue doing so. We all know that many achievements have been reached and I think that we can feel proud about the work done so far.

Almost 30 years ago, soon after I became disabled, somebody tried to block me from entering to a cinema in Costa Rica. Since then, I have experience other moments when I have felt my rights violated, but probably not carried out openly and consciously. I know that many of you have experience even repeatedly, violations to your and periodically we know through Disability Tribune and other media, about the serious violation to the rights of PWD in other parts of the world.

But it was not until the night of 12th. August, when again my dignity and my human rights were direct, voluntarily and openly abused, in a Geneva restaurant. Accompanied by two friends: Bernardo Villegas, staff member of the International Labour Office, and Sebastian Ferrer, staff member of the Independent Living Institute of Sweden; went to a restaurant called Carnevale di Venezia, at 55 Rue de Berne, 1201 Genève (Tel:022 738 01 58). Before placing our order anything, the manager/owner(?) asked me in very rude manner to move to another table, which is at the back of the restaurant and facing the wall. According to him I was blocking the passage for other people and that was obviously not true. I refused to move and due to his persistence, I had to leave the restaurant. Even though I could express something in English, my limitations with the French language, prevented me from expressing what I really wished. Bernardo argued to him in French and obviously every one in the restaurant knew about the situation but nobody reacted.

This happened in one of the richest cities in the world that amongst many international organizations like the one in which I work, houses the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Precisely, Switzerland strongly supported the proposed International Convention on Protection and Promotion of the Rights and Dignity of Persons with Disabilities, during the recent discussions in New York.

Warm regards to all,
Federico