Battle to be equal
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As the Paralympics closed this week amid widespread acclaim that they, like their sister Olympics, had been the best in history, not all disabled people were celebrating. Bruce Maguire, a blind internet user from Sydney, is bringing a damages claim next week against the Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (Socog) for “humiliation and loss of opportunity to participate” by failing to make its web site (www.olympics.com) accessible to him. Visually impaired internet users and some physically disabled people access information online by converting text into speech or Braille. These methods require accessible web design such as descriptive “tags” for images or the provision of text alternatives to graphics files (see panel). Maguire’s case will be heard on Monday by the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. At a preliminary hearing earlier this year, the commission found that Socog and its technology partner IBM had breached section 24 of the country’s disability discrimination act, and should take immediate action to make the Olympics and Paralympics sites accessible. More : guardian.co.uk |