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HUMAN RIGHTS

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities came into force on 3 May 2008. The aim is to promote, protect and guarantee the human rights and fundamental freedoms of people with disabilities. It is about participation and equal opportunities. Germany has been obliged to apply the Convention since 2009. Violations can be reported to the European Court of Human Rights.

NEW RIGHTS

After 1945, people with disabilities and their relatives fought for decades for legal equality and to overcome structural violence. In the 1980s, a broad disability rights movement emerged in Germany. In 1994, the movement achieved its first success with an amendment to Article 3 of the Basic Law. In May 2002, the Act on the Equality of Persons with Disabilities came into force.

However, participation and equal opportunities are still not guaranteed everywhere.

New right-wingers are adopting and continuing the thinking from the National Socialist era. Violence against sick people has also been on the rise again for years.

»Nothing about us without us.«

(Motto of the disability rights movement)

Eine große Gruppe Menschen in blauen T-Shirts steht um ein Transparent herum. Sie blicken kämpferisch zur Kamera.

Demonstration against attacks on sick people on 7 June 2024.

Lebenshilfe Lüneburg-Harburg. Photographer Johannes Kruse.

In the year before this exhibition opened, a right-wing extremist attack was carried out on facilities belonging to Lebenshilfe. The message »Euthanasia is the solution« was thrown through a closed window with a stone. The Lüneburg Memorial protested against this together with Lebenshilfe Lüneburg-Harburg.

»You can recognise the value of a company by this,
how it treats the weakest of its members«.

Gustav Heinemann, Federal President from 1969 to 1974.

Es ist ein weißer Briefumschlag. Aufgedruckt ist ein Logo der Bundesrepublik Deutschland bei den Vereinten Nationen. Rechts daneben ist die Unterschrift von Gustav Heinemann und eine Briefmarke mit dem Logo der UN und der Flagge der Bundesrepublik.

Envelope with special postage stamp »Federal Republic of Germany Member of the United Nations« and autograph of Gustav Heinemann (1899–1976) as first edition, 21 September 1973.

ArEGL 172.

THERE IS A WIDE RANGE OF PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES AND ILLNESSES. THERE ARE BABIES WHO ONLY LIVE FOR A FEW DAYS DUE TO ILLNESS, PEOPLE WITH SEVERE AND LONG-TERM MENTAL ILLNESSES, ELDERLY PEOPLE WITH SEVERE ILLNESSES AND PEOPLE WITH HIGH SUPPORT NEEDS. EVERYONE HAS A RIGHT TO A DIGNIFIED LIFE – EVERY SECOND, EVERY MINUTE, EVERY DAY.