On April 6th, Lashonn White, a deaf woman, made a desperate call to the police from her home in Tacoma, Washington. With the help of her interpreter, White reached the 911 operator and said, “Please hurry! There’s a person here beating me up.”

Tacoma Police Officers Ryan Koskovich and Michael Young were told several times that White is deaf, yet they arrived on the scene without an interpreter or any necessary communication devices. When White rushed out to the balcony to meet the officers, she was immediately tasered in her ribs and stomach. A disoriented White had barely recovered from the taser’s shock before police arrested her for obstruction and assault of a civil servant.

White spent 60 hours in jail without an interpreter, which violates Washington law as well as the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Sadly, White’s story is just one instance in a long list of incidents where law enforcement officials have violated the rights of people with disabilities.

• In June, Chicago police tasered a woman who was eight months pregnant for parking in a handicapped space. Police claimed they could not tell she was pregnant, although it was obvious to anyone who saw her.
• Last month, a mentally disabled man was executed by lethal injection in Georgia, despite a United States Supreme Court ruling making it illegal for mentally disabled inmates to be killed.
• Last September, a mentally ill homeless man was brutally beaten to death by two California police officers.

In a blog post, Charles A. Archer, CEO at Evelyn Doughlin Center for Serving People in Need writes, “inviting people with disabilities to participate in community events and becoming more involved in society” is the best way to enact policy. The ADA protects disabled persons’ rights on paper, but the question of policy vs. training comes to mind with so many police brutality cases leaving the voices of the disabled lost in translation.

Archer, among many others, argues, “starting an advisory group that includes, in the case of a police department, both officers and people with disabilities, to provide input on shaping policies and training” would give officers not just a law, but an understanding of communicating with disabled persons.

In the instance of Lashonn White’s arrest, officers claim that they did not merely yell stop at the deaf woman as she ran toward them. They put their hands up, palms facing outward to signal stop. Others at the scene recall that the officers did not signal for White to stop at all, which is why White, who could not hear the officers yelling “Stop!” kept hurrying toward the two policemen until one of them tasered her.

The ADA is often referred to as a “feel-good piece of legislation,” as it optimistically outlines the appropriate use of hand signals, interpreters, even the use of a pen and notepad to effectively communicate with deaf and people with disabilities. But police training and community integration are needed to actualize ADA policy. Needless deaths, injuries and discrepancies could be avoided if members of law enforcement were not just told how to communicate with disabled persons, but taught how to communicate and provide the basic rights outlined by federal law.

TAKE ACTION: Sign the petition demanding the Tacoma Police Department train their officers to communicate with people with disabilities in their community.

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Although U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack refuses to link drought and climate change, Secretary-General Michel Jarraud of the United Nations World Meteorological Organization (WMO) warns:

Climate change is projected to increase the frequency, intensity, and duration of droughts, with impacts on many sectors, in particular food, water, and energy. We need to move away from a piecemeal, crisis-driven approach and develop integrated risk-based national drought policies.

WMO has joined with the U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and other U.N. partners to warn global leaders that an inter-connected world needs integrated drought planning rather than the current piecemeal approach.

Drought in the U.S. and parts of Canada has destroyed grain crops and wiped out hay production. The National Climatic Data Center is calling it the worst drought since 1956 , affecting 62.9 percent of the contiguous U.S.

In Africa, Michael Zamba describes a drive across drought-stricken regions of Mauritania where he witnessed a stark and barren landscape:

[T]he desert is punctuated by slowly decaying animal carcasses among the thorn trees and leafless baobabs. Each carcass represents a piece of the calamity for rural communities in this West African nation, which depend on livestock to generate income.

Meanwhile, England is losing its reputation as a water-logged country. Several years of dry winters have emptied rivers and lowered water flow. Sarah Vrba wrote in April:

The vast majority of England has been recently classified as experiencing official drought conditions, according to The Guardian. This means that water supply companies can choose to apply restrictions on residential and business water usage.

The list goes on. India, Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia and Mexico are all suffering significant drought. While fields burn, crops wither, livestock suffer, and water sources shrink, government and business leaders continue to focus on self-interest, concentrating more on elections and profits than the fate of the planet.

In an attempt to form consensus on drought action that will cut across political jurisdictions, WMO, UNCDD and other U.N. partners are planning a High-Level Meeting on National Drought Policy for March 11-15, 2013. Whether the meeting in Geneva will be more successful than previous attempts at creating consensus around critical issues is yet to be seen.

What is certain is that without a willingness to embrace coordinated action, we are all on the same train, pulled by an engine headed toward a cliff. The time for playing the you-first game has long passed.

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When Isra’a arrived in Za’atri, a Jordanian refugee camp, she saw the words “death camp” scrawled in Arabic on a UNHCR tent — no doubt a chilling welcome for the 10-year-old Syrian girl who fled Damascus with her mother when government forces brutally killed her uncle. The graffiti is also an alarming message for Syrians risking their lives to seek a safe haven: refuge is hard to find.

Now Isra’a and her family struggle to survive in this desolate, windswept refugee camp in the middle of the Jordanian desert, far from anything she knows. It’s been over a year, and Isra’a still has no idea when, or if, she’ll be able to return home. “I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to my friends,” Isra’a said. She lives in limbo, along with the 250,000 other Syrians who have fled to camps like Za’atri since the civil war began — whether in Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon, or most recently, Iraq.

Every day, a thousand new refugees pour across Syria’s borders.

Given the shortage of food and water, and the lack of protection from the blinding dust and the desert’s extreme temperatures, some refugees wonder if life in Jordanian camps is worse than life in Syria. “In Syria, it’s a quick death,” explained Abu Sami, a 30-year-old refugee, as he and other Syrians gathered to protest the poor conditions. “But here in Za’atri camp, it’s a slow death for us all. We escaped shelling and bombardment of our homes and now face this torment.”

The feeling is pervasive. “My life is miserable in the tent,” said Haj Abdul-Karim, another Syrian refugee in Jordan, who crams himself into a small tent with nine of his relatives every night. “Now there are some refugees moving the other direction — from Jordan back into Syria, or farther to other places, like Turkey.”

In Turkey, the accommodations are just as bad — or even worse. The tents in Turkish camps are flimsy, unable to withstand weather. The influx of migrants has strained Turkey’s access to basic resources, and led to food and water shortages, as well as poor sanitation. A few weeks ago, refugees in a Turkish camp gathered to protest against the inadequate water supply, unsanitary bathrooms and the camp’s unnecessary detention practices. The peaceful picket soon turned into a violent riot, with four Turkish police officers and ten Syrians injured.

As the number of refugees grows, UN agencies and NGOs race to improve the conditions and contain discontent.

But camp conditions aren’t the only problem. In Lebanon and Iraq, the problem is that there are no refugee camps. In some cases, Syrians are housed in school basements, and are not allowed to leave or even visit relatives in the area. Harsh policies and hostile rules restrict their movements and undermine their freedom. Refugees are treated like criminals and kept under military guard.

“We wish to go back to Syria and die there instead of living here in this prison,” said Abdul Hay Majeed, a Syrian refugee forced to stay inside a schoolhouse in Iraq.

Even those refugees who could roam freely wouldn’t want to. Discriminatory violence in countries like Lebanon keeps many hiding in fear. Last week, the powerful al-Mequad claimed that it kidnapped 20 Syrians — ordinary, middle-class citizens. Hoteliers and landlords drive up their prices to exploit the Syrians’ desperation. They demand sky-high rents that the refugees must accept.

The Lebanese government has largely ignored the issue, allowing the profiteers to cash in on the crisis and abandoning its humanitarian duty to provide shelter, food and medical treatment.

“It’s not hell precisely, but it’s as close as it gets,” said Jamal, a 26-year-old Syrian photographer.

In the midst of the fire and brimstone, a grassroots response to the humanitarian crisis is beginning to take root. One activist, Al-Shhadeh, is collecting refugees’ stories in Turkish camps. He has created a blog, Syrian Voices, to share personal accounts of the conflict. “If you want to sleep well at night,” he recorded one refugee saying, “You have to help us.”

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