What are the conditions for the second trial of disabled activists?
They will once again take their fight for accessibility to the inside of the courtroom. Fifteen “activists”, including ten with disabilities, are retried on appeal this Thursday in Toulouse for having blocked a TGV on the tracks then the runways of the airport in 2018. “We blocked the passengers for an hour, we is all life”, ignites Odile Maurinarmchair muse of the movement and already in its defense on the merits.
But the defendants have also been warning about the form for a week, after what they call the “fiasco” of the first trial, in March 2021. Some had all the difficulty in the world to access a crowded room, in the midst of a health crisis. The hearing ended at 10:30 p.m., when the carers were no longer there to help with the toilet or bedtime. Bedrya, for example, who suffers from severe speech difficulties, could not speak or at least be heard.
New ramp and break every two hours
And if Odile Maurin predicts a “bis repetita”, things should have gone better this time. The court has been preparing this trial for several months to “anticipate the difficulties that may have arisen in the first instance”. An abnormal courtroom was set up and an access ramp was installed on the court of appeal side of the courthouse. In addition, the hearing will not go beyond 7:45 p.m., even if it means resuming the next day “The organization of breaks every two hours requested by the defendants” has been accepted, specifies the general secretariat. And Bebrya will have an interpreter at her side this time.
Activists, who were unable to inspect the facilities as they claimed, are skeptical. “Abilityism, cowardly Odile Maurin. They have no awareness of our real difficulties”. The elected municipal opposition must be compared twice this Thursday. For blockages but also, alone, for violence during a demonstration of “yellow vests”.