A young Lebanese woman has become the first person charged under Australia’s new prohibited symbols laws after allegedly displaying a Hezbollah flag at a protest in Sydney.
Sarah Mouhanna, 19, turned herself in to Kogarah Police Station at 10am on Wednesday after police made an identification appeal as part of an investigation into the alleged display of terrorist symbols at a demonstration on Sunday under Operation Shelter.
She was arrested for questioning and was later charged with “cause public display of prohibited terrorist organisation symbol”, and granted strict conditional bail to appear before the Downing Centre Local Court on October 23.
Police allege Mouhanna had a yellow Hezbollah flag wrapped around her shoulders while marching with other protesters, the Daily Telegraph reported.
Hezbollah has been listed as a terrorist organisation by the Australian government since 2021, on the basis that it “is directly or indirectly engaged in, preparing, planning, assisting in or fostering the doing of terrorist acts”.
Weekend demonstrations in Sydney and Melbourne following the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah sparked outrage after protesters were seen waving flags representing the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group and framed images of Nasrallah.
Opposition leader Peter Dutton called for police to charge protesters under Australia’s laws banning the public display of the Nazi salute, Nazi symbols, and terrorist organisation symbols, which came into effect at the beginning of the year.
“The laws already exist, and if the laws are inadequate then the Australian Federal Police Commissioner should advise the minister and the parliament should deal with it as a matter of urgency,” Mr Dutton said on Tuesday.
“We would support the government in any changes that are required to stop the glorification of a terrorist organisation.”
But the Australian Federal Police said on Monday that simply carrying a Hezbollah flag was not sufficient to lay charges: “The mere public display of a prohibited symbol on its own does not meet the threshold of a Commonwealth offence.
“The Criminal Code sets out very specific elements that must be met in order to charge an individual with a prohibited symbol offence.”
The Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment (Prohibited Hate Symbols and Other Measures) Bill 2023 was rushed through parliament late last year after a group of Australian nationalists gate-crashed an anti-gender ideology demonstration in Melbourne with a sign saying “destroy paedo freaks” and performed Roman salutes.
Queensland Nationals senator Matt Canavan told The Conversation he had doubts about the legislation at the time, which he said was a kneejerk reaction to the protest.
“We’re not going to suppress the idea by banning the symbol,” he said.
“Locking people up for flying a flag is a halfway measure. It won’t defeat extremism – rather it risks spreading it.
“We don’t actually have a stake in this fight, yet we seem to be reacting to this conflict in a way we haven’t reacted when Australians were actually fighting.”
Mr Canavan said he feared applying the symbols bans would only “fire up the issue” and distract from the real problem of incitement to violence by hate preachers and at some protests.
Header image: NSW Police released these images of a woman seen at a protest before Sarah Mouhanna turned herself in
