An Australian court convicted the supremacist this Friday Jacob Hersant to one month in prison for having pronounced the Nazi salute in public, the first custodial sanction for this crime in this oceanic country.
Justice Brett Sonnet of the City of Melbourne Magistrates’ Court ruled that “in Australia, as in most liberal democratic countries around the world, freedom of expression is not an absolute concept. (Therefore, limitations on liberty are justified to protect the common good of the people of a State,” according to the transcript of the decision obtained by Efe.
The magistrate also told the condemned man that “the white man is not superior to any other race.”
Hersant faces a maximum sentence of one year in prison and fines of more than 16,000 US dollars (14,832 euros) under the laws of the Australian state of Victoria, where the proceedings took place.
The legal defense of this 25-year-old neo-Nazi Australianwho is the first person convicted in the state of Victoria for giving the Nazi salute, plans to appeal the decisionadded a Victoria Magistrates Court spokeswoman.
Hersant was caught giving the Nazi salute in another Melbourne court, where he appeared for a separate matter, on October 27, 2023, about six days after the law making Nazi salutes illegal in Victoria.
At the time, he declared in front of television cameras: “I almost did it, now it’s illegal?” then added “Australia for the white man, Heil Hitler“.
Hersant’s defense assured during the legal proceedings that this extremist had not performed the Nazi salute and argued that, even if he had, the accusation was constitutionally invalid because this gesture represents a legitimate form of political expression.
The Victorian government proposed a law banning the Nazi salute after a group of people marching in the streets of Melbourne made the gesture in March 2023, amid heated clashes between protesters for and against transgender rights before the State Legislature. .
In New South Waleswhere the Nazi salute was also made illegal in 2022, a court convicted three men last June pay fines of around 338 US dollars (308 euros) for making this gesture during a match in Western Sydney.
After verifying that these types of acts were occurring in several states, Australia criminalized nationally earlier this year the Nazi salute in public, as well as those who display or sell Nazi symbols such as flags or insignia of the Third Reich or those that glorify terrorist acts and supremacist hatred, to a prison sentence of up to 12 months.
