A nationalist activist facing one year in jail after being hit with Victoria’s first Nazi salute charge has vowed to appeal if convicted in his trial case, saying the ban on the gesture restricted freedom of expression and is biased against White Australians.
Jacob Hersant, 25, spoke to Noticer News after the second day of his hearing in the Melbourne Magistrates court on Tuesday where he is contesting the charge on the grounds that he did not perform the gesture, and that the laws are constitutionally invalid since the salute is a legitimate form of political expression.
Australian nationalist Jacob Hersant, who is facing a year in jail after being charged with doing a Nazi salute, spoke out after his hearing today.
“The majority of the population do not want these laws restricting their speech”
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“If I’m convicted we are going to appeal it to a superior court. I have full faith that these charges are going to be ruled invalid, whether or not its in the Magistrates Court, or the County Court, or the Supreme Court, or the High Court, is irrelevant to me,” he said.
“These laws really are against a particular political view. It doesn’t stop the hatred of liberals, or Communists, or anyone else for that matter who hates, it only stops the hatred of the so-called far-right, particularly national socialists.
“They aren’t to protect the public, they’re to protect the government and the pets that they’ve brought here.”
Mr Hersant, who is the leader of right-wing activist group the National Socialist Network, said he believed it was important to challenge the laws on constitutional grounds, since they were not approved of by most Australians and suppressed free speech.
“I think that the majority of the population do not want these laws restricting their speech. They don’t want any laws restricting speech, they don’t want bureaucrats and academics deciding what we can and cannot say. It is evident that multiculturalism equals less freedom,” he said.
“I think [the prosecutors] have a very weak argument for why my speech, or my ability to express my worldview should be curtailed. They think that apparently giving the Roman salute, giving a political salute, is stopping minorities in this state from expressing their political rights. And that is not true, this is just Communist doublethink.
“The reality is it is the government that is taking away the rights of White Australians to express themselves politically, to protect these minorities, to protect these minorities’ feelings, these yellow, brown and black feelings, and of course the Jews, who are responsible ultimately for getting these laws passed.”
Mr Hersant is accused of performing the Roman salute outside the Victorian County Court in October 2023 after he and European Australian Movement leader Thomas Sewell were sentenced for their roles in a clash with far-left provocateurs during a camping weekend.
Video played to the court of the alleged offence showed Mr Hersant beginning to raise his arm before stopping and saying “nearly did it – it’s illegal now”, which Mr Smartt said proved that he did not complete the gesture.
The salute had been banned in Victoria just six days earlier, along with the intentional public display of Nazi symbols, under the the Summary Offences (Nazi Salute Prohibition) Bill 2023, which was informed by feedback from the Jewish community, Holocaust survivors, Victoria Police, the Ethnic Community Council of Victoria.
Anti-Defamation Commission chair Dvir Abramovich, who was behind the campaign to criminalise the salute, said he “found it hard not to break down in tears of jubilation” when the bill passed Victoria’s parliament, calling it a “thunderous victory”.
During the hearing on Tuesday Mr Hersant’s lawyer Timothy Smartt questioned the credentials of “hate speech” expert Professor Katharine Gelber, who testified that the salute causes systemic and collective harm to minority groups, saying she was not an actual scientist, but a social scientist.
“Being offended, and being hurt is just an occupational hazard of being in society, and to limit speech because of that, we say, is not legitimate,” he said.
On Monday Mr Smartt suggested that Dr Gelber, who is Jewish, had allowed her personal political views to affect her professional opinion, but the professor denied this.
A second expert, historian Robert Loeffel, admitted under cross-examination that he used Wikipedia to prepare his report on the Nazi salute, prompting Mr Smartt to question his level of expertise.
Magistrate Brett Sonnet reserved his decision on Mr Hersant’s charge and the constitutional validity of the law until October.
