Prominent Australian nationalist Jacob Hersant has been given a one-month jail sentence for performing a political salute.
Mr Hersant, 25, the leader of right-wing activist group the National Socialist Network, was released on appeal bail 45 minutes after being ordered into custody in the Melbourne Magistrates Court on Friday.
Magistrate Brett Sonnet last month found Mr Hersant guilty of performing the salute outside the Victorian County Court in October 2023 after he and European Australian Movement leader Thomas Sewell, who supported Mr Hersant in court on Friday, were sentenced over a clash with far-left provocateurs during a camping weekend.
He is the first Victorian to be found guilty and sentenced to prison under the state’s then-six-day-old Nazi salute ban, which was brought in following consultation with the Jewish community, Holocaust survivors, Victoria Police, and the Ethnic Community Council of Victoria.
Mr Hersant’s lawyer Timothy Smartt argued against a prison term, mentioning a number of NSW cases where people found guilty of doing the salute were fined, and reading a list of violent offences were only a minority of those convicted were jailed, and saying Mr Hersant was exercising freedom of speech.
He said he and his client would be appealing the sentence and the conviction in the County Court.
In his sentencing remarks Magistrate Sonnet accused Mr Hersant of taking advantage of the media to “disseminate extreme political views” and stated that “the performance of the Nazi gesture is a virulent display of hate speech”, ABC News reported.
“The White man is not superior to any other race of people,” he said.
Mr Hersant said outside court that laws used to prosecute him had serious issues.
“To be sentenced to a month in prison for a political gesture is farcical. These laws are insane, they’re emotional, they’re antiwhite,” he said.
“People should be scared of the government, because they want to imprison me, I’m just a family man that wants to be political, and they want to use people with guns to come throw me in a concrete cage because I gave a gesture.
“People should be scared of the government, not me.”
Mr Hersant pleaded not guilty, arguing that he did not perform the salute, and that the legislation banning it was constitutionally invalid as it restricted legitimate political expression.
After being found guilty he said outside court he was “proud to be fighting for our rights as White Australians to express ourselves politically”.
“I think the vast majority of Australians agree that we should have the right to express ourselves in this country. I think it is a minority of the population, particularly the Jews, that want to take that right away from all of us,” he said.
“I’m confident that we will win on appeal, and I think the magistrate agrees … he recognises that this law will be ruled invalid because of the implied freedom to political communication guaranteed by the constitution.
“I think that taking away our rights as White Australians to protect the supposed feelings of minorities is just another reason why we don’t want these minorities in our country.”
The sentencing comes just a day after Mr Hersant was arrested for alleged “serious racial vilification and grossly offensive public conduct” over a Halloween party where Ku Klux Klan costumes were worn. He is expected to be charged on summons.
Police allege the group “dressed in offensive clothing” in a retail store car park in Port Melbourne on October 31.
“Instead of worrying about actual crimes, the police are trying to throw me in jail for a Halloween costume. The Jews have made fun illegal in the state of Victoria,” Mr Hersant told Noticer News.
Mr Sewell was also arrested and charged on Thursday with “intimidate a police officer/family member” over alleged online commentary about an officer filmed trying to remove the masks of National Socialist Network counter-protesters at a refugee rally in Melbourne on October 22 where activists held a banner saying “fuck off, we’re full”.
Police said he was also interviewed in relation to alleged offences against the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act over a different protest outside the Chinese Consulate in Toorak on October 26 where the group demanded the extradition of a man who fled China after allegedly attacking a baby in a suspected racially motivated attack.
Mr Sewell made a speech at the rally after activists burned the Chinese flag, and posters of Chinese president Xi Jinping, Mao Zedong, and the fugitive wanted for scalding baby Luka with hot coffee in Brisbane in August.
“The Chinese government is offended by our actions demanding the extradition of the baby mutilator, and have asked Victoria Police to charge us under racial vilification laws,” Mr Sewell told Noticer News.
“Victoria Police are taking marching orders directly from the Chinese Communist Party to arrest White Australians.”
