Bagdad Atrocities on People with
Disabilities
Condemned
The National Down Syndrome
Congress (NDSC) and the National Down Syndrome Society (NDSS) condemned
the use of individuals with Down syndrome by terrorists following
dual bombings in Baghdad Friday. According to news reports, terrorists
used remote-controlled explosives attached to two women with Down
syndrome to kill at least 73 people.
Responding to news of
the attack, NDSC Executive Director David Tolleson said, “this tragedy is compounded by the terrorist’s vicious
exploitation of individuals with Down syndrome.” NDSS President
Jon Colman agreed, noting that “this was not a suicide attack,
these women were murdered, as surely as the other victims.”
This is not the first time individuals with Down syndrome have been
used by terrorists in such deadly attacks in Iraq. On January 31, 2005,
an explosive device tied to a boy with Down syndrome was exploded in
Baghdad, in an act condemned at the time by NDSC and NDSS and others
around the world.
Both the National Down
Syndrome Society and the National Down Syndrome Congress urge the
Iraqi government to use every available method to end the abuse
of individuals with Down syndrome and to use this tragedy as a
catalyst to enact and uphold policies and laws that will protect
the basic human and civil rights of all individuals with disabilities.
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National
Down Syndrome Congress
