Australia has passed tough anti-hate-crime laws, including mandatory jail time for giving a Nazi salute in public, in a bid to tackle a recent surge in anti-Semitism.
The laws will impose minimum jail sentences of 12 months for hate crimes and displaying hate symbols, and six years for those found guilty of terrorism offences.
“I want people who are engaged in anti-Semitism to be held to account, to be charged, to be incarcerated,” Anthony Albanese, the prime minister who had initially opposed mandatory minimum sentences for hate crimes, told Sky News.
The government’s hate-crimes bill was first introduced to parliament last year, creating new offences for threatening force or violence against people based on their race, religion, nationality, national or ethnic origin, political opinion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and intersex status.
Recent months have seen an escalation of attacks on synagogues, buildings and cars of Jewish community members across the country, including the discovery of a caravan laden with explosives with a list of Jewish targets in Sydney.