A young man has been charged with alleged making a Nazi salute at a rally for so-called transgender rights in Sydney.
NSW Police said the 20-year-old stepped in front of a group of far-left “Trans Day of Resistance” protesters in Newtown, an inner-city suburb with a large homosexual population, at about 2pm on Saturday and allegedly made the hand gesture and threatening remarks. They said he was not associated with the protest group.
Video of the march shows a small group of activists walking down Newtown’s main street with a large police escort while chanting “when trans right come under attack, stand up and fight back” and “not the church, not the state, only we can celebrate”, and waving homosexual symbols.
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“The 20-year-old man was immediately arrested and taken Newtown Police Station,” police said in a statement.
“He was charged with knowingly display by public act Nazi symbol without excuse and make a gesture in a public place that is a Nazi salute.”
The man was granted bail and will face Newtown Local Court on January 14 next year.
Organisers said the rally was to “protest the discrimination, gatekeeping and prejudice which marginalises trans and non binary people” and Newtown Greens MP Sarah Leong, who upset the Jewish lobby earlier this year by using the word “tentacles” while criticising their political influence, was billed as a speaker, alongside a “trans” unionist and a representative from a group which advocates for Asian immigrant prostitutes.
The Asian Migrant Sex Worker Advisory Group (AMSWAG) are campaigning for the release of an Asian man who claims to be a woman from Villawood Detention Centre, claiming he was “racially profiled” by Australian Border Force officers who determined he was entering Australia to be a transsexual prostitute.
They claim he has been denied hormone treatment, and that there are four other men claiming to be women at the detention centre who have to share the male area.
The charges come amid a flurry of charges and court cases in New South Wales and Victoria as police enforce new laws banning the political gesture which were brought in following consultation with the Jewish community, Holocaust survivors, Victoria Police, and the Ethnic Community Council of Victoria.
In Victoria earlier month prominent nationalist activist Jacob Hersant was sentenced to one month in jail for performing the Nazi salute outside a Melbourne court shortly after it was outlawed, while fellow National Socialist Network members Nathan Bull and Michael Nelson are also facing multiple “offensive behaviour” charges for allegedly making the salute before it was banned.
Mr Bull was also charged with allegedly making a Nazi salute at a showing of the movie Zone of Interest in Melbourne in March.
On Friday a man was charged with making the gesture outside a police station in Frankston, another man was told by police he would be charged over an alleged salute at Flemington racecourse on November 8, and in October a Victoria Police sergeant was suspended for allegedly performing the salute at the police academy.
In NSW three men were last month fined $1,100, $1,00 and $500 for performing the salutes outside the Sydney Jewish Museum on October 13 last year, while last week two out of three soccer fans convicted in July for making the salute in October 2022 had their guilty verdicts overturned on appeal.
All three had argued the gesture was symbol of Croatian national pride and not linked to Nazi Germany.
Also in Sydney a Middle Eastern restaurant owner was charged under the same laws for holding a sign which replaced the Star of David on the Israeli flag with a swastika and said “stop Nazi Israel” at a pro-Palestine protest last month. He pleaded guilty and will be sentenced in December.
Header image: Trans Day of Resistance protesters (Instagram)
