July 1, 2010 
‘We have decided: in September blind persons living in Croatia, will go into hunger strike because of years of systematic neglect and discrimination. I believe that it will be mass protest, “said the president of the Croatian Association of the Blind Vojin Peric …Specifically, this announcement came after a number of people with disabilities in Croatia were abolished the right to free toll. Although the Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor once promised that this right will not be abolished for the wholly disabled, blind civilians nevertheless ‘came out’ from the Public Roads Law.
According to Novi List, the state provided that the right to free toll remains only to those who have a 80 percent to 100 percent disability associated with disability of lower limbs to move, i.e. the legs. The right remains also for all wholly-disabled veterans from the war. This means that a person who was blinded in the war is toll free, and equal civil blind people do not have the same right.
Darko Matic from Velika Gorica, secretary of the Croatian Paralympic Committee and advisor to mayor of Velika Gorica, is indignant with such a decision.
“With the pension of 1,400 kuna to me such amount represents a financial problem, but injustice and discrimination hurts me more than having to pay it. Such regulations discriminate blind people in two ways – first in relation to those persons who have acquired a disability due to damage to the legs, then in relation to persons who are also blind, but they lost their vision in the war. When we discussed this problem in one of our meetings, an MP from the ruling coalition asked me why I object to the abolition of toll free when I can walk. I answered by asking: Can you walk or drive with your eyes blindfolded?” comments Matic.
“Eyes are, like legs, necessary for body movement. To be able to work normally, I have to use a car that drives my wife or someone from my friends,” said Matic, adding that blind civilians such injustice hurts even more because they know that by taken away one of the important rights to them, the state saves a minimum amount.“Out of 6,000 blind persons in Croatia, only ten percent use this privilege and they use it once or twice a year. According to our calculations, the state saved up to 200 thousand kuna on this move ” said President of the Croatian Association of the Blind Vojin Peric.
Perić warns that the last provision is only one in a series that discriminate against Croatia blind people, and announced that, apart from the strike, the Croatian Association of the Blind together with the Croatian Law Centre will raise a complaint that will challenge the constitutionality of such a law on public roads.
Taken from: www.danas.net.hr