Disabled protesters stop traffic at Oxford Circus
| 14:43 UK time, Monday, 30 January 2012
On Saturday afternoon, demonstrators in wheelchairs chained themselves together across the junction of Regiant Street and Oxford Street, bringing traffic in one of London's busiest shopping areas to a standstill.
At the height of the action, around 300 people stood in support of the protesters, banging drums and waving placards. .
The guardian reports that
protester Mary Cross told the paper that disabled people needed to work together to get their voices heard. She said: "We're seen as quite an easy target. We're not a natural community - we don't necessarily live in the same places, and we can find it hard to get together. That makes it easy for the government to think they can target us."
Demonstrators were worried that half a million disabled people will lose their benefits as a result of changes brought in under the welfare reform bill which moves back to the House of Commons for further debate this Wednesday.
In response to Saturday's direct action, a Department of Work and Pensions spokesperson told the ´óÏó´«Ã½ that the government was "absolutely committed" to supporting disabled people and it was spending more than £40bn per year on disabled people. "Households where someone receives disability living allowance will be exempt from the benefit cap and we are giving local authorities an additional £190m over four years to ensure vulnerable people are supported through the housing benefit reform, so we are not expecting people to become homeless ...
"The introduction of the universal credit from 2013 will see a simpler and fairer system of support for disabled people."
He added disabled people in greatest need would receive more support than they do currently.
demonstrators tweeting during the protest reported that there was no trouble and that police were very calm throughout. The participants described the demonstration as a success.
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