Self-described Nazi becomes first person jailed in Australia for illegal salute

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) – A self-described Nazi became the first person in Australia to be jailed for performing an illegal salute when he was ordered by a magistrate on Friday to spend a month behind bars.

Jacob Hersant, 25, is also the first person in the state of Victoria to be convicted of the Nazi salute. The gesture was outlawed nationwide since he committed the crime.

He was convicted in the Melbourne Magistrates Court last month of making the right-arm salute to news cameras outside the Victoria County Court on October 27, 2023. Hersant had just avoided a jail sentence for causing violent disorder. The Nazi salute had been banned by state parliament days earlier.

Magistrate Brett Sonnet allowed Hersant to remain free on bail after his conviction until Friday, when he was jailed for a month.

But Hersant spent just an hour in custody before his lawyer, Tim Smartt, succeeded in a bail application after he appealed against his conviction and sentence.

Hersant faces a potential maximum sentence of 12 months in prison plus a fine of A$24,000 ($16,025).

Smartt said Hersant should not be jailed for a nonviolent act.

“It is not justified to send a 25-year-old to prison. This is wrong,” Smartt told the magistrate.

Sonnet said a prison sentence was appropriate.

“If there was physical violence, then I would have imposed a sentence close to the maximum sentence,” Sonnet said. “The accused sought to promote Nazi ideology in the public arena and the court is satisfied that he took advantage of the media to disseminate extreme political views.”

Hersant was a member of the National Socialist Network, an organization that promoted white supremacy, the deportation of immigrants and far-right activists, Sonnet said.

As he delivered the salute last year, he praised Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and said: “Australia for the white man”.

Sonnet said his words were “clearly racist and seek to promote white supremacy in Australia”.

“In short, the white man is not superior to any other race of men,” said Sonnet.

Hersant’s lawyers argued that his comments and greeting were protected by an implied constitutional freedom of political communication.

On the way to court on Friday, Hersant argued that he had the right to express his political views.

“We’re going to argue that the law is constitutionally invalid and it’s emotional and it’s anti-white,” Hersant told reporters. “It’s my political view and I think it’s a good fight for us to have an argument in court saying these laws are invalid.”

Three men were sentenced in June for cheering at a football match in Sydney. Three other men were convicted last month for making the gesture outside Sydney’s Jewish Museum. All were punished with fines.

Anti-Defamation Commission chairman Dvir Abramovici, a leading opponent of anti-Semitism in Australia, said Hersant’s jail sentence should remind Nazi sympathizers that Australia has “no mercy for those who bring symbols of terror to our streets”. .

“This is not just a sentence – it is a national outcry that the symbols of Nazism have no place on our soil,” Abramovich told reporters outside the court.