Jacob Hersan is scheduled to be sentenced Wednesday and could face 12 months in prison and a fine.

A self-described Nazi on Tuesday became the first person convicted in the Australian state of Victoria of performing an outlawed Nazi salute.

Jacob Hersant, 25, gave the salute and praised Nazi leader Adolf Hitler in front of news media cameras outside the Victoria County Court on Oct. 27, 2023, after he had appeared on a unrelated charge. It was six days after the Victoria state government had made the salute illegal.

The Federal Parliament passed legislation in December that outlawed nationwide performing the Nazi salute in public or to publicly display, or trade in, Nazi hate symbols.

A Melbourne magistrate found Hersant guilty, dismissing defense lawyers’ arguments that the gesture wasn’t a salute and that the ban unconstitutionally infringed upon Hersant’s implied freedom of political communication.

    • RegalPotoo@lemmy.worldEnglish
      51·
      28 days ago

      Strongly agree. The fact that a nazi shithead felt safe enough to out himself in public means that more nazis need to be seeing public consequences for being hate filled oxygen thieves.

      Being a nazi should be like being a pedo; you should be living in constant fear that someone is going to find out and that when you eventually get out of prison your friends, family and society at large want nothing to do with you

      • 5ibelius9insterberg@feddit.orgEnglish
        371·
        28 days ago

        There‘s a tiny detail that makes Nazis even worse than (at least non-offending) Pedos:

        Beeing a nazi is a choice!

        • pyre@lemmy.worldEnglish
          7·
          28 days ago

          when people talk about pedophilia in this context they usually mean child predation, not the psychological condition. I doubt anyone cares if you have this as a condition but seek help for it without violating anyone.

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldMEnglish
            12·
            28 days ago

            Of course, we need to destigmatize the idea that someone who has sexual thoughts about children is automatically a monster first. People with such thoughts that have never acted on them don’t seek help precisely for that reason.

            I wish there were some sort of public campaign to get people who have not acted on those thoughts to get the help they need, but I have a feeling that such a campaign would get a huge amount of negative pushback from people who say that you’re just enabling pedophilia or something.

    • metaStatic@kbin.earth
      14·
      28 days ago

      The generation that dealt with Nazis didn’t teach their children about bayonets, and here we are again learning the hard way.