Sixteen months after her arrest in a nighttime raid on her home, Toronto school teacher Suzanne Narain sat in a packed courtroom, anxiously waiting for a judge to hand down her fate.
Charges against Narain and two others were withdrawn on Thursday in a courtroom bursting with supporters, at what was expected to be the conclusion of the cases against 11 activists accused in the vandalism of a downtown Indigo bookstore in November 2023.
And although Judge Vincenzo Rondinelli reserved his judgment for two of the group who pleaded guilty Thursday, it seems likely that this large-scale investigation involving more than 70 police officers and 10 nighttime raids will not achieve a single registered criminal conviction.
“We’re saying it’s a victory for us,” Narain tells Global News in an exclusive interview.
“They invaded our homes, destroyed our lives and spent millions of dollars to do this. And there hasn’t been one conviction. Just to silence organizers speaking out against Palestine. And none of us are silent,” Narain says.
Suzanne Narain, one of the ‘Indigo 11’ accused in the vandalism of a downtown Toronto bookstore, had her charges withdrawn on Thursday.
Ashleigh Stewart
Supporters flooded the courtroom Thursday, many of them wearing keffiyehs, a symbol of Palestinian culture and resistance, in support of a group of professors, teachers and activists who have become collectively known as “the Indigo 11.”
The group faced charges of mischief, conspiracy and criminal harassment in relation to the Nov. 10, 2023, vandalism of an Indigo bookstore in downtown Toronto, in which red paint was splashed across the storefront and posters of Jewish CEO Heather Reisman’s face, above the caption “funding genocide,” were glued to the windows, weeks into the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Reisman’s HESEG Foundation provides tuition to former lone soldiers who serve in the Israel Defense Forces.
Police labelled the incident a “hate-motivated mischief investigation,” while Jewish advocacy groups called the act antisemitic, as hate crimes against Jews spiked across the country. The incident became a flashpoint for local tensions amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, as the line between hate crime and legitimate protest became harder to define.
According to Toronto police, there have been 488 demonstrations related to the conflict in the Middle East since Oct. 7. Those resulted in 94 arrests — 10 of them related to hate crimes.
But several of the Indigo 11 argue this isn’t the same thing; that protests should not be criminalized. They also argue that the police investigation has been heavy-handed, that raiding their homes in the middle of the night without warning has left many of them traumatized and subjected to abuse and death threats.
But the Jewish community says the police’s failure to register a criminal conviction against any of the Indigo 11 undermines public confidence in authorities.
“By sending the signal that our courts take these acts of hate lightly, this decision risks emboldening extremists and encouraging further law-breaking,” says Michelle Stock with the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs.
Others point to the police response as an example of “overreach” and a tendency to judge pro-Palestinian protests more harshly.
“There’s a big difference between hate speech and protesting against the IDF’s actions in Gaza,” says Bruce Ryder, a professor at York University’s Osgoode Hall Law School.
“And it’s really unfortunate that the police didn’t seem to show any appreciation of the sensitivity and nuance required to make the distinction between valid political speech and hate speech.”
As the case now reaches its conclusion, seven of the accused have had their charges withdrawn and four have pleaded guilty. Two of those guilty pleas have received absolute discharges, and the other two are likely to be granted the same.
As authorities continue to grapple with how to handle protests in the wake of Oct. 7, how did this case go so wrong?
‘I felt it necessary to act’
Toronto police say they have made 220 arrests and laid 604 charges for hate crimes since the war broke out not including demonstrations. Antisemitic hate crimes made up 46.9 per cent of all hate crimes in 2025.
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In January, a Toronto man was charged with 29 crimes, including advocating genocide and inciting hate, after he allegedly spent eight months posting online to encourage attacks on the Jewish community in support of Palestinians.
Those actions were labelled hate-motivated offences. The Indigo 11 argue their case is not the same thing.
Global News sat down with two members of the group, Narain and Sharmeen Khan, ahead of their court appearance on Thursday. As their bail conditions disallowed them from associating with each other, Narain had to leave before Khan arrived. Both Khan and Narain later had their charges withdrawn.
Activist Sharmeen Khan says postering is a form of protest and should not be criminalized.
Ashleigh Stewart
After 16 months of silence, they wanted to finally attempt to clear their names. However, because each was expecting their charges to be withdrawn, they closed ranks as soon as they were questioned about Nov. 10.
“There were posters put up with a satirical message and washable red paint,” says Narain, a former TDSB school teacher who is currently under investigation by the Ontario College of Teachers due to her arrest.
“I think that’s the message. Who was there, who did it, whose charges got dropped…that doesn’t matter as much.”
What is clear, from the Crown’s summary of facts, is that at about 4 a.m., at least four of the accused, who entered guilty pleas, visited Indigo and stuck up about 50 posters, and several of them poured red paint over the window. It caused about $9,000 worth of damage, the Crown said.
York University doctoral student Stuart Schussler pleaded guilty to his role in buying the supplies at Home Depot. Immigration lawyer Macdonald Scott, who also pleaded guilty, told the court, “This was a time that I felt it necessary to act.” Both now await sentencing on April 10.
In the days following, police arrested one of the group, Nisha Toomey, and found a chat thread on the messaging app Signal, in which several of the accused discussed committing the vandalism.
This formed the basis for a slew of nighttime raids, involving battering rams in some cases, on 10 activists’ houses. Toomey later pleaded guilty and received an absolute discharge.
According to documents from the group’s lawyers, Narain was only a part of the Signal chat group for eight hours. Khan says the group was formed to discuss “three days of action for Palestine,” but the list of 10 arrestees was “weird or incomplete” and she doesn’t know how police collated it.
Many of the accused were involved with the advocacy group No One Is Illegal Toronto. Narain and Khan say they did not know all of the arrestees well. They believe the only real connection was that they were all protesters.
There were also several errors in the arrests, according to their lawyers. They say police broke down the door of an address one accused hadn’t lived in for years and items outside the parameters of police warrants were searched. Many say police did not announce themselves at their door. Several of the group say their Charter rights were violated.
Khan, who works for CUPE Local 3903, says she was awoken at about 5 a.m. to police in her bedroom, some in plain clothes.
“I thought there were burglars, or as though they were the gang members who found the wrong house,” Khan says.
“My neighbor called the police on the police, thinking this was some sort of break in. I was just scared. I just said ‘please don’t hurt me’.”
Khan says police took photographs of pages out of a personal diary from 2022. Narain says her partner’s car was searched, which police didn’t have a warrant for. Narain says police watched her go to the toilet, and had to “ask them for privacy to wipe myself.”
After police released their names and charges in a statement, Narain and Khan say they were subjected to a vicious backlash, including racist and sexist messages and emails and derogatory comments about their appearances.
“I was distraught. It really broke my heart. You know, I just thought, ‘Wow, this is everything I am against.’ And you’re saying that this is who I am, you know?” Narain says.
Lawyers also alleged police misconduct after the warrant for Toomey’s arrest, obtained by Global News, showed night arrest was disallowed and other requests for items to be searched were crossed out or had restrictions imposed on them. Several requests were crossed out as “too vague” and another was scratched as a “potential Charter breach.”
However, when police arrested the remaining 10 accused, it was with a night warrant granted from a different justice of the peace, without restrictions. Lawyers say police had a duty to disclose prior warrant restrictions. The group also argued that police ignored specific timelines the warrant dictated for searches for Toomey’s phone, which, they say, helped them arrest the remaining 10 people.
Toronto police would not answer any questions in relation to the nighttime raids, allegations from the accused, the list of arrestees or about the warrants.
‘Criminal behaviour…has consequences’
There was no cheering from assembled supporters of the so-called ‘Indigo 11’ as charges were withdrawn against Narain and two others on Thursday. Instead, it was a muted shuffle out of the court chambers after Judge Rondinelli reserved judgement in two of the cases — Scott’s and Schussler’s — for sentencing, which was expected to be handed down on the same day. A planned triumphant press conference was scaled back.
Khan said the bookstore defacement should never have been considered a crime, and that it was a “total misrepresentation” that Reisman was targeted specifically for being Jewish, that they were protesting against HESEG.
Both Narain and Khan acknowledged that the ordeal would not stop them from protesting. They were also considering launching legal action against the police.
“I don’t find postering an act of vandalism, it’s a form of protest speech and free speech,” Khan says.
“It’s not public or private property vandalism or damage [if] a company is engaged in practices that are harming people.”
Toronto police, however, disagree. Taking Thursday’s hearing and guilty pleas as a triumph, spokesperson Stephanie Sayer said: “Acts of vandalism and targeted intimidation are not protected forms of expression; they are criminal offences that have real and lasting impacts on our communities.”
“Today’s outcome sends a clear message: criminal behaviour—regardless of motive—has consequences.”
Professor Ryder, however, believes the court’s decision is appropriate — that vandalism should be rightly considered a crime, but the nighttime raids and slew of criminal charges were a clear example of “police overreach.”
“The police response from the outset seemed disproportionate given that what we’re dealing with is the right to protest. And vandalism…should be the subject of mischief charges, but also the police should show some restraint given that the protesters are exercising their right to engage in political expression on one of the most important issues of our time,” Ryder says.
He says pro-Palestinian protests in Canada, and in the Western world, were often dealt with in a similar way, which needs to be carefully considered.
“We need to think very carefully about why is it that we are seeing such heavy-handed police responses to pro-Palestinian protest,” he said, “and what can we do to ensure that our institutions are approaching these issues in a more balanced and nuanced way.”
