Terrorism threats: will the deaf also hear about them?

Last week, all of Belgium sat in front of the television waiting for the Belgian Prime minister's announcement, worrying whether alert level 4 will remain in force the following day. Will the metro run? Is it safe for kids to go back to school? Yet, the words of PM Charles Michel could not be understood by deaf people as there were neither Flemish nor French sign-language interpreters present at the press conference.

It is regretful that deaf and hard of hearing people did not have access to information in their mother tongue following the terrible terrorist attacks in Paris, nor during the unprecedented announcement of the highest terror alert level in Brussels. The sad fact is that we have no solution for this, neither on the EU level nor on the Member State level, which puts our deaf fellow citizens in exceptional danger. In the United States of America, there is a sign interpreter present at every press conference and the most important pieces of information can also be followed in written form on the television screens.

The terrible massacre in Paris should teach us to do more in this field both on the European level and on the Member State level. Every life is important, but we can only protect them if we are able to deliver real-time information to every single person.

Hungary offers a good example: during the last flood of the Danube River, Prime Minister Viktor Orban's remarks at press conferences were interpreted by sign-language interpreters on the spot so that deaf citizens knew exactly what to do in those difficult days and were also informed when the flood danger subsided.

In addition, Hungary's National Disaster Prevention Service runs the so called VÉSZ application which can be downloaded for smartphones or tablets for free. With this application any one can receive real-time written information on their smartphones about every proximate danger or about nationwide warnings or alarms. In a union of 28 countries, working in 24 languages, with some countries with more than one official language, delivering the most important information in sign-language should neither be a problem, nor be forgotten.