Lawmakers have banned public displays of the Nazi salute, swastika and other hate symbols as Australia tries to get to grips with a spike in antisemitism.

Australian lawmakers have banned the performance of the Nazi salute in public and outlawed the display or sale of Nazi hate symbols such as the swastika in landmark legislation that went into effect in the country Monday. The new laws also make the act of glorifying OR praising acts of terrorism a criminal offense.

The crime of publicly performing the Nazi salute or displaying the Nazi swastika is punishable by up to 12 months in prison, according to the Reuters news agency.

Mark Dreyfus, Australia’s Attorney-General, said in a press release Monday that the laws — the first of their kind in the country — sent “a clear message: there is no place in Australia for acts and symbols that glorify the horrors of the Holocaust and terrorist acts.”

  • @[email protected]English
    23•11 months ago

    Incorrect, the supreme court has many times over ruled “hate speech”, which doesn’t have a legal definition in the US, is protected under 1st amendment. Calling for violence is not.

    I am free to say “I hate [insert protected class/person/group/etc]” without legal consequences.

    Although I am technically free to say “Let’s cause harm to/attack [insert protected class/person/group/etc]”, legal consequences could follow since call to violence.

    • OptionalEnglish
      7•11 months ago

      Agreed. Hence the issue with “hate speech” in quotes.

      When Is Offensive Speech Unprotected?

      Speech which is merely offensive is always protected by the First Amendment. However, some types of speech which are often conflated with “hate speech,” but which go beyond expressions of opinion can, in limited circumstances, be unprotected by the First Amendment.

      Let’s talk about incitement to violence and harassment.

      (Tl;dr: incitement to violence and harassment are not protected speech)

    • BeautifulMind ♾️English
      3•11 months ago

      I seem to recall that when southern states wanted to prosecute Martin Luther King, Jr for “hate speech” on the theory that his calls for equality amounted to anti-white racism, the way SCOTUS dealt with that was by punting on the question of what hate speech is or isn’t.

      By taking the ‘hate speech’ stick away from states, the high court effectively ruled that Nazis had the right to rallies under the rubric of free speech. It was this optimistic dithering on the court’s part (surely, the way forward is free speech and everybody will use that in good faith right?) that is part of why the US’s stance on hate speech diverged from that of Europe and the commonwealth