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Calls for Education Minister Dora Siliya (pictured) to apologize over her remarks she passed recently have continued heating up with some visually impaired individuals saying the people with disability feel threatened by the MMD government’s stance on the blind.
Recently Ms. Siliya was quoted by the media as saying only a blind person can fail to tell or explain what Government is doing in the country.
She was referring to remarks by Mongu Catholic Diocese Bishop Paul Duffy, suggesting that the people of Western province wanted a change of government due to lack of development in the province.
The latest call comes from the Zambia Federation of Disability Organizations (ZAFOD) which claims that the statement by Ms Siliya is agitating, annoying and discomforting.
Organization Human Rights Manager Wamundila Waliuya said the statement by the Education Minister was demeaning and derogatory to the blind.
Mr Waliuya noted that Ms Siliya’s statement has sent a wrong signal to the Zambians saying it meant that the blind do not appreciate development.
Beth Haller, Ph.D., is Co-Director of the Global Alliance for Disability in Media and Entertainment (www.gadim.org). A former print journalist, she is a member of the Advisory Board for the National Center on Disability and Journalism (https://ncdj.org/). Haller is Professor Emerita in the Department of Mass Communication at Towson University in Maryland, USA. Haller is co-editor of the 2020 "Routledge Companion to Disability and Media" (with Gerard Goggin of University of Sydney & Katie Ellis of Curtin University, Australia). She is author of "Representing Disability in an Ableist World: Essays on Mass Media" (Advocado Press, 2010) and the author/editor of Byline of Hope: Collected Newspaper and Magazine Writing of Helen Keller (Advocado Press, 2015). She has been researching disability representation in mass media for 30+ years. She is adjunct faculty in the Disability Studies programs at the City University of New York (CUNY) and the University of Texas-Arlington.
From Lusaka Times in Zambia:
