Following the attack in Japan there has been a united response from deaf and disabled campaigners and organisations from around the UK. Horrified by the mass killing of disabled people in Sagamihara, representatives have drafted a joint open letter in memory of those disabled people killed in Sagamihara, Japan last month.
Many signed the letter responding to the killings in Sagamihara and a final copy of the letter and everyone who signed is now up on the Inclusion London website. The letter appeared in the Morning Star on the 4th August last week.
There is also a book of condolence put together by Disabled People Against Cuts, People First and Inclusion London. Please leave messages of support and solidarity for the surviving victims and their families and do circulate the following link: https://sagamiharacondolencebook.wordpress.com
Disability Rights UK (DRUK) was shocked and alarmed at the news. In a DRUK article about the killings Stephen Brookes MBE, co-ordinator of the Disability Hate Crime Network said “hate crime is an abhorrence… and the terrible acts of murder and serious injury committed in Japan against disabled people by someone who saw us as valueless is yet another proof we are living in a seriously disengaged world.”
Liz Sayce, CEO of Disability Rights UK also appeared on BBC World Tonight to discuss hate crime, something she says still goes unreported and unnoticed. In the DRUK report of her appearance, Sayce says that this is because disabled people don’t think their account will be taken seriously or due to a distrust of the system.
For more information on disability hate crime, including how to report it see this DRUK Hate Crime Factsheet or you can report a hate crime at the True Vision website.
