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Today I was lucky enough to hear the human rights barrister Adam Wagner KC talk about his work, with Adam Rose of Mishcon De Reya, for the families of the 7 October hostages.

Speaking at City University at the invitation of the law school, Adam took us through the work they did to hold the UK to it obligations to Iris citizens and its commitments to uphold universal human rights standards. 

During the conflict, the Israeli government’s disproportionate bombardment of the Gaza Strip took the lion’s share of the coverage. The work ‘The Adams’ did to remind the media and the rest of us about the plight of the hostages was crucial at that moment in history.

Halfway through Adam’s speech, the event was interrupted by four protesters singing “Free, Free Palestine.” As someone who has spent half a lifetime talking about human rights and more than a decade working for free speech NGOs, it behoves me to comment.

Apparently the university staff called the police. There is always a certain unpleasant frisson whenever disruptive protesters wear masks (“show your face” said Mr Rose). However, two of the four singers were women and their contribution was entirely vocal, not physical.

The protesters would no doubt say that they were exercising their right to political speech, but it must also be said that their protest was undeniably an act of censorship. Adam Wager was prevented from speaking and we, the audience, were prevented from listening. An example of the heckler’s veto.

But we also witnessed a paradox. By their shouting, the protesters denied themselves the chance to be heard.

Ever since John Stuart Mill (no, ever since Socrates and Cicero) it has been recognised that the great value of free speech is that it offers a chance to persuade. This persuasion happens in two ways:

The first, of course, is by speaking to your political opponent:

“Wrong opinions and practices gradually yield to fact and argument: but facts and arguments, to produce any effect on the mind, must be brought before it.”

But just as important is listening to your opponent:

“He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that.… He must be able to hear [opposing arguments] from persons who actually believe them; who defend them in earnest, and do their very utmost for them. He must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.”

Present in the audience was Baroness Ludford, a Liberal Democrat peer. A literal legislator, by definition influential. The protestors did not address to her.

The only commentary the protesters made (other than the singing) was to call Mr Wager a Zionist and a war criminal and to call for him to be disbarred. This was an absurd thing to say, the outburst of someone unwilling to engage and therefore unwilling to persuade. The protest was a spectacle, devoid of content, designed to secure social media approval from people who already agree with them.

They had an opportunity for dialogue with someone thoughtful, which they squandered. They could have simply registered for the lecture as I did, and participated in the Q&A. If they genuinely believe that Mr Wagner and Mr Rose’s work is somehow enabling Israeli human rights abuses, they could have tried to explain why. It might have been awkward and unappreciated by the organisers, but it would have been a dialogue and a form of dissent which advanced everyone’s freedom of expression.