Canuck 🇨🇦 Barrister🪧@gardencourtlaw Human Rights, Crime, Migration, Protest, Conflict. #LALY winner
Joined January 2015
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@acmogan retweeted
“We are having people being arrested before they've said anything—people who were just making the way for poems. If this was happening in Russia or China, people would be outraged.”
Speaking outside Westminster Magistrates Court, Tim Crosland of Defend Our Juries detailed the chaotic police intervention targeting peaceful solidarity actions for Gaza. Over 1,500 people—many of them pensioners—were listed to appear on charges under anti-terror legislation for holding signs, only to face court administrative delays.
When organizers set up a simple step stand to allow poets to share readings and songs for Gaza, police swept in, arresting two people and placing them in painful rear hand-restraints under anti-terror and serious crime provisions. Shortly after, a facilitator was arrested simply for speaking to the crowd without amplification.
đź“Ť Westminster Magistrates Court, London
đź“… 30 July 2026
#DefendOurJuries #TimCrosland #WestminsterMagistratesCourt #StateRepression #FreeSpeech
@financialeyes @defendourjuries
@acmogan retweeted
📕 @FranceskAlbs new book — a NYT bestseller — is about what it actually costs to look at a war directly, in real time, while everyone else is scrolling past it.
Here’s the thing: We’re living inside the exact moment this book is describing, right now. The bodies keep getting counted. Doctors keep dying in Israeli custody. The UN keeps putting out statements that change what, exactly? Nothing on the ground. The news cycle moves on before the grief even has time to land.
Francesca wrote this because she wasn’t going to let that happen to the people in these pages. She gave them names. Memories. Mornings. Fear. Dignity. Things the news cycle doesn’t.
That’s what makes her so dangerous. She doesn’t ask you to have the right opinion. She asks you to sit with one person until you can’t continue looking away anymore. And then she asks what you’re actually going to do about it.
Read this book. Not to feel informed. To feel implicated. In the good way. The way that actually moves you into feeling, and into action.
I’m grateful to call her a friend. To learn from a mind that holds this many dimensions at once and still finds a way through with grace. The way she navigates this moment has become something I measure my own against.
While the World Sleeps, by Francesca Albanese.
GET IT NOW: otherpress.com/product/when-…
@acmogan retweeted
Charlotte Head, for whom Rajiv Menon KC made a closing speech on 8 January 2026 - a speech for which be now stands to be imprisoned - speaks out:
opendemocracy.net/palestine-…
@acmogan retweeted
As lead defence barrister in the trials of the Filton 6, Rajiv Menon defended all of them, including my daughter. So this outrageous prosecution feels very personal.
But it should horrify anyone who might one day need to to be defended in court. Please sign 🙏
HELP GET TO 15,000 đź“ť
Rajiv Menon KC is facing contempt prosecution for referencing jurors rights.
If the independence of juries can’t be mentioned in court without risking prison, every defendant's ability to receive a fearless defence is put at risk.
you.38degrees.org.uk/petitio…
@acmogan retweeted
Barrister Rajiv Menon KC is facing potentially two-years in prison for doing his job. This has never happened in British legal history.
Sign the petition 👇
netpol.org/2026/07/15/stop-t…
@acmogan retweeted
Raju Bhatt - "“This attack on Rajiv was borne of a fear that the jury might do the right thing. What Rajiv did here was nothing more and nothing less than the job he was required to do for his client. The rule of law has been flouted not by him, but by two senior members of the judiciary who were all too ready to exceed their jurisdiction, as the Court of Appeal has already found: Johnson J and Edis LJ”
"An attack on Rajiv is an attack on all of us committed to speaking truth to power" @DebatINQUEST @INQUEST_ORG
Sign the petition.
you.38degrees.org.uk/petitio…
@acmogan retweeted
Gareth Peirce: "“For a defence advocate, for the first time, to be charged, necessarily triggers anger at the selectivity and differentiation in the face of the history of there being no prosecution of a prosecuting barrister for their speech – even when they ridiculed a defendant for not producing an alibi witness (which a prosecutor knew that he was concealing) or deprived the defence of knowing of forensic exculpatory evidence (because they refused its disclosure to them)”
@acmogan retweeted
Edward Fitzgerald KC - "Criminal defence lawyers, who are at the coalface of the justice system, must be able to defend their clients fearlessly without the threat of imprisonment from vague and unpredictable judicial procedures. It is an entirely novel and disturbing development for criminal contempt proceedings to be invoked against a barrister for words spoken during a speech made to a jury. Criminal barristers have a duty to zealously defend their clients and it can never be in the interests of justice to deter them from doing so in accordance with their professional judgment by the threat of criminal sanctions"
@acmogan retweeted
Henry Blaxland KC on the role of the prosecution in what is happening to Rajiv Menon KC: "By initiating these proceedings, the trust between the prosecution and defence has been fundamentally betrayed, it has been broken"
If you are paying attention you will sign this petition. The crackdown on #FreeSpeech; political interference to protect the #war machine
you.38degrees.org.uk/petitio…
Blinne Nà Ghrálaigh KC speaks to the important context behind Rajiv Menon KC's prosecution - the crackdown on #freespeech across this country.
"If you are not afraid right now you are not paying attention" @DefendourLawyer
@acmogan retweeted
Gareth Peirce “Right now we can see frightening indications of movement in our criminal trial structure, affecting institutions whose roles have been hitherto understood to be stable, and immovable. The jury, the advocate and the judge – that they are less certain now is, in and of itself, terrifying”
Political interference to protect the war machine during genocide.
We should all be very afraid. #RajivMenonKC
The first speaker is Baroness Shami Chakrabarti: “I am sad that we are here for this reason. The late, great Tom Bingham gave us the clearest modern exposition of the rule of law. He set out eight principles. The fifth principle is that the rule of law should protect fundamental human rights - that includes the right to a fair trial. The seventh principle, is that courts should be fair. It is my view that it is crystal clear, that these rules have been graphically violated in this case, for everyone to see”
@acmogan retweeted
Baroness Shami Chakrabarti on the role of judges in the case: "I am not someone who routinely criticises judges. Judges are human. But it is my view, that they have behaved capriciously in this case...people have a right to know what is being done to the right to a fair trial when advocates are penalised for doing their job. I want to hope and believe that the appeals to come will resolve this issue and we can resign this to the history books."
@acmogan retweeted
The next speaker is Keir Monteith KC @gardencourtlaw – “I am proud to be able to speak in support of Rajiv Menon KC, a phenomenal lawyer. I have no hesitation in supporting him in his hour of need. I am one of thousands who stand shoulder to shoulder with him. We know there is phenomenal solidarity across the whole of society. Solidarity is expressing that support now. It is being visible now. Solidarity is a bond that permanently protects us now and in the future. I am Rajiv Menon KC. You are Rajiv Menon KC. We are all Rajiv Menon KC”
I'm back on twitter only for this.
Stand up for Rajiv Menon KC. Stand up for the Rule of Law. Sign this petition.
A petition in support of Rajiv Menon KC launched by @DefendOurJuries and Netpol has now exceeded 11,000 signatures. The details are below
@acmogan retweeted
Is it weird to have a crush on a Law Lord?
As you can see, I'm not asking for a friend.
Today Baroness Hale came into the studio for an exciting top secret new series for @BBCRadio4 and @bbcsounds from the excellent team behind ⚖️ @lwladykillers ⚖️
