AUSTRALIA GOES AFTER NAZI SYMBOLS IN BID TO CURB FAR RIGHT

Fri 09 June 2023:

Australia is implementing stronger regulations to forbid the public display of Nazi symbols, the nation’s top law enforcement officer said Thursday.

The law will ban such symbols from use on flags, armbands or printed on clothes. A ban on the Nazi salute will not be added to federal law, instead it would be up to individual states to make that decision, Dreyfus said.

“We’ve seen, very sadly, a rise in people displaying these vile symbols, which are symbols that have no place in Australia, they should be repugnant,” Dreyfus told Australia’s Channel Seven television.

“There is no place in Australia for symbols that glorify the horrors of the Holocaust,” Dreyfus said.

“And we will no longer allow people to profit from the display and sale of items which celebrate the Nazis and their evil ideology,” he said.

The legislation will be presented to parliament next week and is expected to pass with opposition support.

Those who break the proposed laws could face up to 12 months in prison, while the public display of Nazi symbols for academic, educational, artistic, literary, journalistic or scientific purposes would also be exempt.

Additionally, there will be exclusions for the spiritual value that Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism place on the use of swastikas for religious purposes.

The selling of Nazi memorabilia for money would be restricted, but private ownership of such objects — such as by historians and war souvenir collectors — won’t be outlawed, according to Australia’s 9News network.

The Federal Government will move to outlaw Nazi symbols, vowing to jail offenders for a year.

Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus says there has been a rise in displays of the hate symbol across Australia. @ChristineAhern #9News

MORE: https://t.co/GCIlx6MXif pic.twitter.com/8C8v3BiGii

— 9News Sydney (@9NewsSyd) June 8, 2023

Australia’s spy agency has been warning that far-right groups are on the rise in Australia and that they had become more organised and visible.

 Australian Security Intelligence Organisation director Mike Burgess last month said fringe cells of Australian neo-Nazis appeared to be growing increasingly bold, and right-wing extremists made up approximately 30 percent of the country’s counterterrorism caseload.

“In the case of the neo-Nazi groups, what we worry about is people who get drawn into that ideology,” Burgess said.

An Australian-born white supremacist murdered 51 Muslim worshippers in the 2019 Christchurch mosque massacre in New Zealand.

Dreyfus said all Australian states and territories had either passed laws or announced plans to ban Nazi symbols, and the proposed federal laws will mesh with state legislation.

The two most populous states in Australia, New South Wales and Victoria, have already put restrictions on the public exhibition of Nazi symbols.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES