A Muslim man has been jailed for three years in Western Australia for posting Islamic State-produced content online.
The 19-year-old on Thursday became the first person convicted and sentenced in Australia for transmitting “violent extremist material” and was sentenced in the Perth District Court to three years’ imprisonment, with a one-year-and-11-month non-parole period.
On Tuesday he pleaded guilty to one count of transmitting violent extremist material online and one count of using a carriage service to cause offence, for sharing videos that included beheadings, and audio recordings “stating intent and encouragement for violence”.
The charges also related to “online conversations involving violence and contempt towards people based on their religious beliefs or ethnicity”, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) said on Thursday.
The AFP said the Western Australia Joint Counter Terrorism Team (JCTT) started investigating the man in June last year after receiving a report of violent extremist material being spread on social media and encrypted messaging platforms.
Investigators from the WA JCTT – made up of officers from the AFP, Western Australia Police Force and Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) – linked the man to the accounts and raided his home on June 12, seizing his phone, a knife and a black balaclava.
The knife and balaclava appeared in some of the material shared by the man.
He was then charged and remanded in custody, and as a result his sentence was backdated to the day of his arrest. He will be eligible to apply for parole on May 12, 2026.
The new Commonwealth offence of transmitting violent material online was included in amendments to counter-terrorism laws passed in 2023, which came into effect in January last year.
The offence carries a maximum penalty of five years’ imprisonment.
The Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment (Prohibited Hate Symbols and Other Measures) Bill 2023 also criminalised publicly performing the Nazi salute or displaying Nazi symbols or prohibited terrorist organisation symbols, and the sale and trade of those symbols.
Header image: A still from an ISIS propaganda video.
