Thanks everyone for all the support you are giving. We have over 90 signatures now and are hoping for more…. Please share with as many people and organizations as you can think of. Some of the most helpful organisations have been those who deal with disability, animal cruelty, and caregivers.

I have been in contact with more Dutch and international organisations and also more with the media (local, national and international). The signatures and comments with the petition are really helping to get interest!

I have been busy researching access to justice for disabled people in the Netherlands. The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities should be the way to ensure justice for this situation (see http://www.un.org/disabilities).

The Netherlands has signed the convention, but still not ratified it. This means that it is not yet in force and the Netherlands is well behind most other countries in Europe on this (the EU ratified it in 2010).

Along with ensuring justice for disabled people, the convention on disability rights provides guidelines for both the police and prosecution services for understanding how to deal with this very complex situation. I suspect that it is lack of awareness more than anything that has caused such an extreme lack of justice. It is complicated, but we need the authorities to understand in order to have justice.

That means that we have some work to do, and I hope you will continue to help us!

Kind regards,
Ellyn (partner/family of the victims)