An 18-year-old accused of repeatedly performing Nazi salutes and plastering “propaganda-style” neo-Nazi stickers on public buildings has been charged in Australia, AAP reported Thursday.
The man was allegedly putting up Nationalist Socialist Network stickers at a Canberra shopping center in October when he was confronted by a member of the public. He then allegedly performed a Nazi salute before leaving the building.
Police say he also allegedly trespassed at the Australian National University multiple times in August to put up the same stickers, and has been accused of performing another Nazi salute at a different shopping center on December 12.
On Christmas Eve, police searched a home in Weston and seized multiple devices along with various stickers bearing the slogan “white man fight back” and other racist messages.
“There is no place for hate and threats of violence against the Australian community,” Australian Federal Police assistant commissioner Stephen Nutt said.
“Antisemitism is a cancer, it is something that needs to be dealt with and removed from Australian society,” he added.
The 18-year-old has been charged with trespassing and defacing Commonwealth property, and with performing Nazi salutes in public, an offense that carries a punishment of up to five years in prison.
His arrest comes amid mounting concern over extremist activity in Australia, two months after a neo-Nazi assembly outside the NSW parliament and less than two weeks after Islamic State-inspired (ISIS) terrorists opened fire at a Hanukkah event at Bondi Beach, killing 15 people.
In a separate incident in Melbourne, Victorian police are still searching for a suspect after a firebombing on Christmas Day, targeting a car bearing a Hanukkah-related symbol outside a rabbi’s house.
Even before the Hanukkah massacre in Sydney, Australia had seen a sharp wave of antisemitism, including the firebombing of the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne.
Days after the arson at Adass Israel, a car was set on fire, and two properties were vandalized with anti-Israel graffiti in the Sydney suburb of Woollahra, which has a substantial Jewish population.
In another incident, the words "F- the Jews" were spray-painted on a car in Sydney.
In early January, the Southern Sydney Synagogue in Allawah, a suburb of the city, was vandalized with antisemitic graffiti.
A day later, the Newtown synagogue, located in Sydney’s inner west, was vandalized with red swastikas that were spray-painted across the building’s front wall.