A court in the Australian state of Victoria has supremacist Jacob Hersant sentenced this Friday to a month in prison for giving the Nazi salute in public. It is the first sanction of deprivation of liberty for this crime in the oceanic country, according to judicial sources.
The sentence imposed by a judge of the Magistrates Court of the city of Melbourne is minimal compared to the maximum penalty of one year in prison and fines of more than 16,000 US dollars (14,832 euros) contemplated by the laws of the Australian state of Victoria, where the process was carried out.
The legal defense of This 25-year-old neo-Nazi Australianwho is the first person to be convicted in Victoria of giving the Nazi salute, is considering appealing the decision, a Victoria Magistrates Court spokeswoman added.
Hersant was caught giving the Nazi salute outside another court in Melbourne, where he appeared for another matter, on October 27, 2023, about six days after the law making Nazi salutes illegal in Victoria came into force.
At the time, he said in front of television cameras, “I almost did it, now it’s illegal?” and then added “Australia for the white man, Heil Hitler.”
Hersant’s defense assured during the judicial process that this extremist did not perform the Nazi salute and argued that, even if he had done so, the accusation was constitutionally invalid because this gesture represents a legitimate form of political expression.
The outlawing of the Nazi salute in Australia
Victorian Government proposed law to make Nazi salute illegal after in March 2023 a group of people who marched through the streets of Melbourne made this gesture, within the framework of heated encounters between protesters for and against transgender rights outside the state Parliament.
In New South Wales, where the Nazi salute was also made illegal in 2022, a court sentenced three men last June to pay fines of around US$338 (€308) for making this gesture during a match in western Sydney. .
After having done so in several states, Australia nationally criminalized public Nazi salutes earlier this yearas well as those who display or sell Nazi symbols such as flags or insignia of the Third Reich or glorify terrorist acts and supremacist hatred, with a prison sentence of up to 12 months.
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