Without solid facts, I find it hard to believe that anyone would heckle special needs children

From ‘Ugly scenes break out at Hong Lim Park’, 28 Sept 2014, article in Today

Ugly scenes broke out at Hong Lim Park yesterday (Sept 27), where protestors allegedly heckled participants of a YMCA carnival including special needs children. The two events  — the YMCA carnival and a rally called Return Our CPF  — had been given approval to be held at the Speaker’s Corner and were allocated separate lawns, according to a joint statement by the police and National Parks Board (NParks).

The statement said NParks and the police approached rally organiser, blogger Han Hui Hui, 22, to “request her cooperation to speak at the allocated space” but Ms Han “did not heed our advice and continued to hold her event at the same lawn as YMCA”. “Ms Han’s group encroached into the YMCA event area, holding placards and shouting slogans, disrupted performances and frightened participants, including special needs children who were performing at the charity event. The Police will be conducting investigations into this incident,” the statement said.

According to a Channel NewsAsia report, participants of the protest rally ended up marching around the YMCA event at least four times. The protestors also got close to Minister of State (Trade and Industry) Teo Ser Luck, who attended the YMCA event.

In a Facebook post last night, Ms Han claimed the group walked towards the stage after the children finished their performance and YMCA staff “tried to push us back out” of Hong Lim Park.  “The moment we reached the stage area, they pushed those children out (to perform), they were shocked at why there were being pushed out and so were we. We decided to walk off as it’s Teo Ser Luck who we wanted to ask to #ReturnOurCPF.”

The Sunday Times posted this picture of the ‘Y stars’, an ensemble of children with mental disabilities including Down’s syndrome, with the caption: ‘Although the special needs performers were stunned….they SOLDIERED on and finished the slow’, blatantly evoking sympathy for the children and making Han Hui Hui’s angry uncle troupe look like a mob of Satan worshippers looking for young flesh to sacrifice at the altar.

Without a full picture of what really went on at Hong Lim Park, I find it hard to believe that anyone would deliberately ruin a children’s performance, special needs or not. TheY crew trains once a week and had a ‘modern dance’ routine specially prepared. Imagine how the proud parents recording this special moment on their brand new iPhone 6plus might feel.

Guest of honour Teo Ser Luck revealed to the media that he had to console one the performers who seemed to be shaken by the CPF hecklers (Chaos at Hong Lim Park charity carnival, 28 Sept 14, Sunday Times), despite being himself harassed by profanity-spewing protesters. HHH claimed that the group just wanted to ‘spread the message’ across and argued with some NPARKs director in another video, insisting that she’s free to march wherever her permit allowed her to. Roy, the original instigator of the whole CPF hoopla, seemed to be relegated to flag-bearing duties, upstaged by a pint-sized hothead who has a blog titled ‘Honest, honorable, holistic, humbly unexplainable irresistible’ and the audacity to make a bunch of plainclothes police look like bumbling idiots. When forced to introduce himself, one inspector even BOWED before HHH. Give this guy a Singa the Lion award already. Is he here to chase some bullies away or take your damn order?

I suppose it’s normal to act in an awkwardly amicable manner when dealing with the likes of HHH in front of a camera, but some situations do call for the police to approach people with a ‘F-off!’ face. This situation probably needed that. Instead of arguing by the letter of the law, the authorities should have managed this the same way they would bust someone having a noisy orgy in the neighbourhood at 2am in the morning.

Contrast this with how the police, in actual uniform, cornered Chee Soon Juan and sister in 2006. HHH should thank her lucky stars she didn’t have to be surrounded in a phalanx of blue.

Even if there’s nothing illegal about crashing someone else’s party if both parties have been granted simultaneous permission for some bizarre reason, there is such a thing as human decency, and if you have a loudspeaker with you and leading an emotionally charged contingent of cantankerous crackpots, you should have the common courtesy to stay clear of a Christian charity event, even if the target of your complaints is Teo Ser Luck. If the intrusion was intended from the beginning to bring attention to #ReturnMyCPF at the expense of one’s dignity, then it has probably succeeded.