A retiree has acknowledged causing harm by wearing a swastika T-shirt outside the antisemitism Royal Commission, where Jewish Australians described widespread antisemitism.
Ian Minus apologised for wearing a swastika T-shirt outside the antisemitism royal commission.
Minus was approached by police on May 6 while wearing a shirt showing a Star of David surrounded by a swastika, with the words “Anti-Semitism. Proud to be accused. SPEAK UP!” He was moved along but arrested later for the offence.
The 68-year-old was outside the building as Jewish students and school staff gave evidence to the commission about antisemitic bullying in the classroom.
Minus pleaded guilty to knowingly displaying a Nazi symbol without a reasonable excuse and appeared in Sydney’s Downing Centre Local Court on Thursday for sentencing.
“I acknowledge what I did was thoughtless, harmful and insensitive,” the retired security professional wrote in a letter of apology to the court.
“I made a serious mistake.”
He wore the T-shirt, which he designed and printed, to draw attention to what he viewed as a genocide in Gaza, but acknowledged the method of his protest was “fundamentally wrong”.
“I believe you can demonstrate about things in our community … but we must do so in a way that doesn’t harm or cause pain to others,” the 68-year-old wrote.
“I significantly failed in that way … and for that I am sorry.”
While the decision to wear the T-shirt was not impulsive, wearing it near the royal commission was unplanned, Minus’s barrister Philip Strickland SC said.
He had been at a nearby cafe when he saw the assembled media and approached, according to an agreed statement of facts.
According to the agreed facts, when speaking to police outside the commission venue, he claimed his T-shirt was “better than the fellow in Bondi”.
That was an apparent reference to the Bondi Beach mass shooting in December, in which 15 people were killed and 35 others were injured in an attack targeting a Chanukah celebration.
Mr Strickland emphasised his client had no criminal history or antisemitic ties and had shown contrition for his actions. He argued the retiree should receive a conditional release order without conviction.
But the prosecutor argued a conviction and a stronger penalty were appropriate to denounce the offending.
Judge Michael Allen accepted Minus had not been motivated by antisemitic views or hatred, noting it was an “unsophisticated way of protesting” his views in a “most inappropriate and insensitive way”.
But he grappled with meeting community expectations for penalising antisemitic conduct.
“No one giving evidence at the royal commission and no one who was on that beach at Bondi on that Sunday afternoon is any more responsible for those atrocities (in Gaza) than anyone in that courtroom,” Judge Allen said.
While the judge accepted Minus had genuine insight into the impact of his offending on the Jewish community, still reeling from the “unspeakable horrors” of the Holocaust, he found a conviction was the only appropriate penalty.
Minus was also fined $1,500.
On the day Minus was arrested, the royal commission heard evidence about students performing Nazi salutes towards a Jewish student during a class studying the Holocaust novel The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas.
By Adelaide Lang/AAP