A disabled man claims Extinction Rebellion protesters heckled and verbally abused him
Extinction Rebellion protesters heckled and verbally abused a disabled man when he was blocked by their demonstration in Melbourne, he claims.
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A disabled man has revealed a shocking encounter he had with Extinction Rebellion protesters in Melbourne last week, claiming he was verbally abused while going about his day.
Matthew Zammit detailed the encounter in a video message submitted to ABC program Q&A, in which he asked about the disruptive climate change protests.
Extinction Rebellion held a week of demonstrations across the country designed to deliberately inconvenience people in order to raise awareness of their cause and key demands.
But Mr Zammit said he was hit particularly hard given he has a disability, and when he tried to speak to protesters, was met with jeers and insults.
“I’ve been heavily disrupted by the protests last week, many people have, but as somebody with a few disabilities it hits people like me harder,” he said.
“I tried to raise these concerns with protesters when they blocked my bus by chaining themselves on tram tracks. I already had to walk with my crutch much more than usual that morning.
“When I attempted to speak with them on one side of the street I was jeered at and called offensive names. I struggled to the other side of the street and had fruitless arguments with protesters there.”
Mr Zammit said he believed climate change was a very serious issue, but asked the panel about what balance should be struck between the rights of people with disabilities and the right to protest.
Victorian Liberal MP Tim Wilson said he had received separate correspondence from Mr Zammit about his troubling encounter.
“They deliberately go about, to their own detriment and their own cause, frustrating people being able to live their life,” Mr Wilson said of the protesters.
Sanctioned activities by Extinction Rebellion supporters last week included a man suspending himself from the Story Bridge in Brisbane, people laying down in traffic in Sydney and people shutting down major roadways in Melbourne.
RELATED: Extinction Rebellion climate change protests doing ‘more harm than good’
Mr Wilson said the actions had resulted in “extreme hardship” for Mr Zammit as a “consequence of their behaviour”.
“They have a right to have their voice heard and express their opinion and a right to associate and come together and protest, but if they have a right to shut down everybody’s life in the process, that’s going too far,” Mr Wilson said.
Labor MP Tim Watts, a fellow Victorian, expressed concern that society seems to have gone beyond a willingness to listen to alternative ideas in favour of blindly arguing.
“We need to spend a bit more time listening to each other in society … there’s a lot of talking past each other and a lot of shouting at each other in the current climate,” Mr Watts said.
Is there a balance that needs to be struck between the rights of people with disabilities and the right to protest? #QandA pic.twitter.com/h9c9Yg1dYu
— ABC Q&A (@QandA) October 14, 2019
He said organisers of Extinction Rebellion protests “should listen to what Matthew just said there” and take it into account.
However, he said the group had shown courtesy in certain cases, saying he’d seen them “make room for ambulances to get through and things of that nature”.
Mr Watts said he doubted they were deliberately trying to cause “physical pain” to people, especially those with disabilities, but that “they ought to listen to them”.
Another high-profile series of protests was a topic of discussion on the Q&A panel on Monday night, with the ongoing unrest in Hong Kong a prime focus.
A questioner from the audience took aim at Mr Wilson’s decision last week to take part in a march in the city, with the woman saying people voted for Australian politicians to focus on domestic issues.
But the MP was unapologetic, saying liberalism valued freedom everywhere in the world.
“I mean, I was in Hong Kong talking at a conference on democracy in Australia, as part of South-East Asia,” he explained.
“If we want to engage with respect and want to engage with the region in a constructive way, we need to have these conversations and be part of advancing Australia’s interest with the community of nations, and have that respectful understanding of many countries.”
They’re on the frontline of a contest between competing world views and have picked liberal democracy — and as a liberal democrat, it’s hard not to be Âinspired by that. (2/2) https://t.co/FzlxLk5ZwL
— Tim Wilson MP (@TimWilsonMP) October 6, 2019
The show’s host Hamish Macdonald asked if the most constructive way of doing that was to join a protest movement that has some violent elements.
“I think every good cause will always attract bad people. That’s the reality,” Mr Wilson said.
More broadly, China’s growing dominance in the world was also discussed, on the back of an explosive episode of Four Corners that exposed groups with Communist Party links infiltrating Australian universities.
Vicky Xu, a writer and a researcher at the Strategic Policy Institute in Canberra, spoke about Beijing’s growing rebuke of criticism of its influence.
“I think there is this effort from the Chinese state to gaslight, by saying if you ever criticise Chinese policies you are being racist and unfair to the millions of tourists, students and Chinese Australians,” Ms Xu said.
“That’s completely false.”
She said it was imperative for Australia to “be clear” and to “stand (firm) on (its) democratic values and not cave in”.
Originally published as A disabled man claims Extinction Rebellion protesters heckled and verbally abused him
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