Thread on the #keirabell judgement and sorry state of evidence-lead health policy in New Zealand.

We have further confirmation that there is no good evidence of benefit from puberty blockers, and significant risks.

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Delhi court starts hearing MJ Akbar's defamation case against Priya Ramani.

Sr. Adv. Rebecca John begins submissions for Ramani.

John refers to case documents: The whole of Priya Ramani's case was put up before the witness.

#MeToo #metooindia @mjakbar

John: I was under an obligation to tell the witness what my defence was, have fulfilled that obligation.

Continues showing case documents.

John refers to an article by Ramani in 2017 where noone was named, however, in 2018 when she tweeted, this article was referred to/attached in the tweet.

John: Only the first four paras of the article referred to Akbar, rest of the article was about male bosses in general.

John refers to the article in @voguemagazine

I’ve often said that nothing is normal about Julian Assange’s case. Here’s my list of the top 10 least normal aspects, strictly on the logistical side of monitoring the extradition proceedings (this is not to mention the many substantive issues that are also far from normal).

1. The judge’s stubbornly persistent refusal to acknowledge that NGO observers are professionals and have an important role to play (separate to that of the general public) in ensuring open justice, and refusal to grant us access to be able to do our jobs properly.

2. The constantly shifting goal posts in gaining access to the public gallery, and arbitrary restrictions on numbers in all 3 courts where proceedings have been held. On any given day, it’s impossible to predict how many will be let in and when, necessitating very early queuing.

3. Receiving conflicting information from the court about remote access, including being accredited to the Cloud Video Platform and then having that access revoked in September. The same thing seems to have happened to us again for 4th January.

4. After unbelievable difficulty getting in, what we actually observed was a small screen on the other side of a large room. It was often impossible to tell who was who, and I could only follow properly as I had the lawyers’ voices memorised from February (when I could see them).

Back in the mists of time, we suggested that the proposed Scottish Hate Crime bill might be used as a stick to beat women who wanted to discuss the GRA, sex-based rights, & welfare of gender confused children.

We were told we were being silly: no one would do that.

Thread/

Today, we saw two proposed amendments to the hate crime bill with regard to #FreeSpeech in relation to transgender identity.

A general one from @humzayousaf & one from @liamkerrmsp which covers many of the topics women feared might result in prosecution - thank you!

If anyone had doubts that the extremists of gender ideology did not intend to use this legislation as a means to silence and intimidate, the frothing indignation of anti-woman activists who might be prevented from filing hourly hate crime reports, surely laid this to rest.

Naturally, Scottish Green Party were quick to charge into the fray. Emz Cuthbertson, co-convener of SGP women & Rainbow Greens, was in no way hyperbolic in referring to it as a "transphobes charter", with Dr Kevin finding the idea of not being able to shut women up "terrifying".

Also up were activist James (who once promoted a lurid fantasy about lesbians beating up a NB child at Edinburgh Pride) & serial party hopper, Tristan who was horrified that "misgendering" was not about to be a crime & thinks advocating child counselling is "conversion therapy".

A hearing is underway now in the case of Richard Barnett, one of the Capitol insurrection defs (photographed at Pelosi's desk) — the govt is challenging an Arkansas magistrate judge's release order. Chief Judge Beryl Howell in DC halted his release until she rules on the matter

Prosecutor Mary Dohrmann begins by arguing Barnett flouted laws "in the most brazen and flagrant manner possible" when he breached the Capitol: "He knew exactly what he was doing."

Prosecutor says the note that Barnett left for Pelosi in her office — "Nancy, Bigo was here you bitch" — was "disturbing" and says the photographs of him sitting at Pelosi's desk show that he appears to "relish" the notoriety

Govt says Barnett doesn't have a criminal record, but notes police reports where a caller lodged a complaint that he'd pointed a rifle at a car with a "Black Lives Matter" sticker and, in a separate incident, was carrying around guns in public