September 26, 2007
Discrimination in the Air
Both Mahesh Chandrasekar in India and Daniel Nelson in the UK have picked up on a type of story that is increasingly common:
A double amputee bomb victim who heads an Angolan disability organisation was thrown off a flight to London, it was disclosed this week.The Portuguese airline TAP pilot told Carla Luis that she needed a medical certificate or a companion. Several passengers offered to be her “companion” and the much-travelled activist pointed out that she was not sick.
Nevertheless, the pilot refused to take off and she was forced to take another flight.
David Morris, senior policy adviser on disability to London Mayor Ken Livingstone, described it as an “absolute obscenity in this century for anyone to be thrown off a plane for being different.”
Read Daniel's piece at OneWorld.net: http://us.oneworld.net/article/view/153360/1/