Is Nigel Hughes inciting civil unrest?

Jul 19, 2013 Letters

Dear Editor,
From a man in the legal profession who aspires to become Senior Counsel, practising good professional ethics has taken a back seat to enhancing his political ambition at all costs.
At a public meeting held last Friday at the corner of William and Alexander Streets in Kitty, Nigel Hughes reportedly called for mass street protests to oust the democratically elected government of President Donald Ramotar.
But this is not the first time that this lawyer appears to be instigating civil unrest through protest. In his “Open letter to the people of Linden” (Kaieteur News, March 4), Hughes reminded Lindeners that “The COI is now over and your wounds are still raw and perhaps even more so.
“The question is where do you go from here. That is a matter only you the people of Linden can determine after you have deliberated on the contents of the report. The awards for damages for the loss of the lives of three of your citizens are appallingly low and the report has attributed fault for their deaths to the Guyana Police Force.
If Nigel Hughes feels that justice was not done to the victims of the Linden shooting during the so-called “peaceful protest” of July 2012, he failed them. The Commissioners clearly were not impressed with most of the testimonies given by the witnesses he advised.
It is public knowledge that Nigel Hughes offered legal consultation to the victims and the families of the three dead protestors in preparation for their testimonies before the Commission of Inquiries -COI. The question must be asked: Did Hughes advise the witnesses to inflate their incomes and falsify employment status to justify a higher level of compensation as the Commissioners believed they did in their report? For if he did, wouldn’t this be a dishonest attempt at corruption, something he accuses the Administration of?
Hughes is impatient, and is anxious to grab power long before the constitutionally scheduled date for national election in Guyana. He’s now openly calling for mass street protest to oust the People’s Progressive Party / Civic from power.
According to Demerara Waves (July 13), Hughes is reported to have said,
“I don’t care what they say that marching down the street does cause disruption and marching down the street- people does get frighten and they send people to infiltrate. Well understand that the strongest weapon you have is the weapon of mass protest…These are radical times. You are facing extraordinary problems and it requires extraordinary solutions.”
And with obvious reference to the mass demonstrations in Egypt that resulted in the overthrow of the government there, Hughes said, “At the end of the day, we the people will have to take the streets to change and get the things that we want. There is no other way.”
This inappropriate, unethical behavior displayed by a leading attorney, who ought to know better than to incite the overthrow of a constitutionally elected government, ought to be taken very seriously by the Attorney General and the Guyana Bar Association. Nigel Hughes must be sanctioned for his reckless cowboy approach to the rule of law, and must be held fully accountable for any violence in his attempt to gain power.
Harry Gill

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Is Nigel Hughes inciting civil unrest?

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