THERE IS NO RIGHT TO HECKLE

Mar 28, 2015 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

When I read that there were peaceful and orderly protests outside a building in Queens, New York where the APNU-AFC coalition held a meeting recently, my instinctive reaction was to ask why the protestors went there to express their disappointment with the coalition.
Why go to someone else’s meeting to protest. The people are having their meeting, leave it alone. If you want to protest do it some other place and at some other time. But here was the AFC and APNU meeting with the Diaspora in Queens and those entering the building where the meeting was being held had to be confronted by a picket line.
Then it dawned on me that there is a legal and protected right to protest. If someone of some group feels strongly about something then that person has a right to express this once it is done in a lawful manner and does not hinder the right of others to do the same.
I have NOT heard any reports of anyone going into the actual building and heckling the APNU-AFC speakers. That would have been out of place. Here was a coalition holding a meeting with interested persons. They should be free to do so. No one has any right to go and disturb that meeting with any heckling. As far as I am aware there was no heckling inside.
There is no right to heckle. While heckling that is not profane or does not cause a disturbance is not illegal, there is no protected right to heckle. There is a right to free expression but this right does not give anyone the right to heckle anybody in a manner that would affect that person’s right to say what he wants to say or to breach the peace or prevent someone hearing what the speaker has to say.
If an opposing party is holding a meeting, then allow those who want to hear what the speakers have to say, to do so. When your turn comes to hold your meeting, I am sure that you would not want anyone to disturb you by their heckling.
If it is not the party you support that is holding the meeting, then don’t go if you cannot quietly listen to what they have to say. Stay home! Don’t go to another person’s meeting to disturb it! You have a right to protest but other people also have a right to receive information free from disturbance.
I am told that many of those who went to that meeting in Queens were not supporters of APNU or the AFC. But they were persons who have an interest in Guyana and they heard that some Guyanese politicians from the opposition were going to their neck of the woods to address them. And so out of interest, out of curiosity, out of the desire to see what the politicians looked like, out of a need to hear what the opposition has to say, they went there.
It is known that when the ruling party holds it meetings in New York, there are persons who go there to hear what the government has to say even though they are not supporters of the government.
Right now there are political meetings being held around the country. There are people who have already made up their mind as to how they are voting, yet they go to the meetings to hear what the side they are not supporting has to say. Not because I attend your meeting means that I am voting for you.
Now imagine how embarrassed a supporter of the opposition will become if he or she notices one of his fellow supporters heckling meetings of the other side.
A recent poll indicated that many Guyanese are undecided about the elections. They have not made up their minds as to which party to support. Many of those persons in order to make up their mind go to the meetings to hear what the politicians have to say.When they see someone from an opposing party heckling the speakers, they will not be impressed. They will disparage such conduct and decide there and then, to cast their vote against the party of the heckler. The undecided voter makes up his mind there and then not and not on the basis of weighing the strengths of each party’s policies. The hecklers make up the mind of the undecided.
The APNU-AFC coalition has done the right thing in expressing its disapproval of attempts to disrupt the political meetings of its rivals. It has said that it wants a clean campaign. This is sensible politics.

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THERE IS NO RIGHT TO HECKLE

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