Latest news with #WhiteManFightBack
Perth Now
a day ago
- Politics
- Perth Now
‘Terrorism': Neo-Nazi's odd offer to cops
A prominent Australian neo-Nazi claimed that police were seeking to arrest him over a violent confrontation at a rally as he faced court on allegations he sought to intimidate an officer and his wife. Thomas Sewell, 32, disputes the allegations, telling reporters outside the Melbourne Magistrates' Court on Monday that it was instead him and his organisation experiencing intimidation and 'terrorism' from police. 'All of these charges come from the fact that we are advocating for white Australians; the government is against us doing that,' he said. It's understood the police investigation relates to an alleged assault on a man in Melbourne's Bourke St Mall in the early hours of Saturday, August 7. Thomas Sewell is facing allegations he sought to intimidate a police officer and his wife. NewsWire / Luis Enrique Ascui Credit: News Corp Australia About 100 black-clad men held signs and flags, including the Australian flag, the National Socialist Network flag and a sign reading 'White Man Fight Back', as they marched down the shopping mall in the city's CBD. Video from the scene captured a man, believed to be Mr Sewell, brawling with a member of the public. The march was condemned by Victorian Premier Jacinta Allen, who called the group 'goons' and vowed to introduce powers for police to unmask protesters. 'Nazis don't belong in this country and they know it. That's why they hide behind masks in the dark,' she said. Police were called after about 100 members of the National Socialist Network marched through Melbourne's CBD in the early hours of Saturday morning. Outside court, the National Socialist Network (NSN) figurehead showed media several stitches to a cut above his left ear. 'I do have some injuries from an assault on my person about a week ago. We did a large demonstration; we marched down Bourke St Mall about midnight … and I was attacked by a deluded, deranged person,' he said. 'The police have refused to charge the man with assault and instead have threatened to arrest me today.' Mr Sewell was supported in court. NewsWire / Luis Enrique Ascui Credit: News Corp Australia Mr Sewell said he'd offered police to arrest him outside of court but wouldn't attend the Melbourne West police station because he believed it would breach his bail conditions. Victoria Police has been contacted for comment. Mr Sewell was supported by six associates, clad in matching Helly Hansen jackets bearing the NSN's emblem and the Australian flag, including Jacob Hersant, Joel Davis and Nathan Bull. He led the march through Melbourne's CBD. X Credit: Supplied His comments came as a three-day hearing on allegations he sought to intimidate a police officer and their spouse was delayed following an application from the prosecution. Prosecutors allege Mr Sewell intimidated the officer and his partner on both October 21 and November 7 last year. He is also charged with alleged breaches of personal safety intervention orders protecting the couple on November 7 and failing to comply with a direction to provide police with access to an electronic device. The November 7 charges relate to Mr Sewell mentioning on a podcast hosted by Mr Davis and Blair Cottrell that a police officer allegedly attempted to remove a NSN member's face covering during a protest. Thomas Sewell appears on a podcast hosted by Joel Davis and Blair Cottrell. Supplied/ Rumble. Credit: News Corp Australia United Australian Party leader Ralph Babet watched the court hearing via videolink. The hearing was pushed back to September 1 by magistrate Michelle Hodgson after prosecutor Louis Andrews flagged the police officer's wife had expressed reluctance to give evidence. 'The prosecution has to consider whether or not to make an application for that witness to be treated as unavailable,' Mr Andrews said. Mr Sewell asked the court to 'note on the record' that police were seeking to arrest him over the CBD incident. He will return to court on September 1. NewsWire / Luis Enrique Ascui Credit: News Corp Australia Outside court, he vowed to fight the charges, labelling them 'false' and 'political persecution'. 'We have the right as Australian citizens to mention what police do and don't do in terms of their attacks on us and that is the beginning of this incident,' he said. 'Explaining the police's actions to the public and they've kicked my door in, arrested me and intimidated my family'.Mr Sewell will return to court for a hearing on the allegations next month.
Perth Now
4 days ago
- Politics
- Perth Now
‘No place': Viral protest plans slammed
So-called Australia First protests being planned across capital cities in Australia have 'no place,' with Minister for Multicultural Affairs Anne Aly vowing that multicultural Aussies 'will not be intimidated'. Flyers for rallies saying 'it's time to take our country back', 'defend our culture' and 'stop mass migration now' have gone viral on social media. A website linked to the march suggests events will be held in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Canberra and Adelaide. The protests are planned for capital cities in Australia. Source: Supplied Credit: Supplied It says: 'Australia is changing in ways most of us never agreed to. People are waking up to a country they barely recognise. Endless migration, weak leadership, and political cowardice have brought us here, and it's time to put a stop to it.' The event is being promoted by far-right users on social media and much of the rhetoric on the March for Australia site is anti-migrant, claiming 'mass migration has torn at the bonds that held our communities together'. Dr Aly, who was born in Egypt before immigrating to Australia at just two years old, said movements grounded in racism had 'no place in modern Australia'. She told NewsWire: 'Multiculturalism is an integral and valued part of our national identity. 'We stand with all Australians, no matter where they were born, against those who seek to divide us and who seek to intimidate migrant communities. We will not be intimidated. 'This brand of far-right activism grounded in racism and ethnocentrism has no place in modern Australia.' The protests come after dozens marched in Melbourne with a 'White Man Fight Back' sign. TikTok Credit: Supplied The pop-up protest at 1am on a Saturday was labelled a 'chilling trailer for ... full-length horror' TikTok Credit: Supplied Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said the Rally For Australia was un-Australian. 'There is no place in our country for people who seek to divide and undermine our social cohesion,' he said. 'We stand with modern Australia against these rallies - nothing could be less Australian.' More than eight million people living in Australia at the time of the last census were born overseas, but the proportion of those born overseas was 31.5 per cent, less than the 32.4 per cent recorded in 1891, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. While locations for the protests have yet to be shared, the protests are being promoted through social media. In lengthy posts shared through the March for Australia Instagram page, organisers have rejected associations with the alt-right 'National Socialist Network, White Australia, or Thomas Sewell Uncensored,' adding that organisers come from a 'diverse range of political backgrounds'.
News.com.au
5 days ago
- Politics
- News.com.au
‘Surpass the Liberal Party': Neo-Nazi group claims surge in sign-ups after Melbourne CBD march
An Australian neo-Nazi group claims it has seen 'hundreds' of new sign-ups following an incendiary march through the Melbourne CBD, prompting warnings about the group's boasting and recruitment tactics. Around 100 members of the National Socialist Network (NSN), wearing masks and dressed in black, paraded through the streets of Australia's second-largest city at around 1am on Saturday, banging drums and holding a banner reading 'White Man Fight Back' as police watched on. The event was met with outrage by Jewish groups and the Victorian government, with Premier Jacinta Allan vowing to introduce new laws giving police powers to 'unmask cowards at protests'. NSN leader Thomas Sewell, who led Saturday's march, posted on private messaging app Telegram that the event had generated a surge in interest for the group's new political arm, White Australia, and even claimed it was poised to overtake mainstream parties in membership. 'White Australia is tracking to surpass the Liberal Party membership in less than 18 months,' he wrote, sharing a graph appearing to show a sharp increase in registrations on August 8 and 9. 'We've had a couple hundred sign-ups in just the last couple days. Our organisation is almost 2.5x the size it was just six months ago. White Australia Rising!' Another prominent NSN figure, Joel Davis, shared a purported traffic overview of the group's website, appearing to show a surge in total traffic. 'When neo-Nazis brag about surpassing the Liberal Party, we are no longer debating ideas, we are confronting a recruitment drive for an Australian chapter of the Third Reich,' said Dr Dvir Abramovich, Chair of the Anti-Defamation Commission, who led the national campaign that resulted in the banning of the Nazi swastika, salute and the sale of Third Reich Memorabilia. 'Thomas Sewell's dream of a 'White Australia' is not nostalgia, it's a blueprint for racial war, and he's building his army in plain sight. This is an extremist enterprise that dreams of ethnic cleansing and is openly recruiting foot soldiers.' Dr Abramovich warned that 'every day they are allowed to operate, they are normalising a future that has no place in this country'. 'This is the moment to draw a line that will not be crossed,' he said. 'Ban them. List the National Socialist Network and its satellites as terrorist organisations. Shut down their digital pipelines of hate. Freeze their accounts. Dismantle their recruitment channels before another teenager is pulled into the vortex.' Dr Abramovich said the NSN were 'Hitler-worshippers who openly talk of 'remigration', their sanitised code for mass deportation, while privately fantasising about executions'. 'They are using our freedoms to turn our democracy into a coffin, and we need coordinated national action and the full weight of law enforcement, intelligence, and political will to stem this tide of hatred,' he said. 'That means proscription powers with teeth, and constant monitoring of extremist infiltration into political parties. The rise in sign-ups that Sewell brags about is a siren. We can stop this but only if we act like we mean it. No sanctuary for Nazis. No refuge for those who worship genocide. No platform for the merchants of racial war.' White Australia also appears to have seen a surge in donations since Saturday. A crowd-funding campaign on GiveSendGo, created by Mr Sewell to 'assist with costs tied to our advocacy, such as legal expenses from ongoing disputes', has received nearly $79,000 since the start of the year, including several large donations this week. 'Awesome march through Melbourne guys!' wrote one supporter who contributed $10,000. 'Inspiring. You're showing the White world how it should be done. Blood and honour!' Another who pitched in $500 wrote, 'Just given a little something back for all the org has done.' In a message on the group's website, Mr Sewell claims 'White Australians must organise as a collective body in order to secure our existence' and that the country was founded as 'the White working man's paradise'. 'Demographics are destiny, every year Australia becomes less White,' he writes. 'This is a harsh reality everyone understands to be true. You cannot sit on the fence for a matter as important as the future existence of our kind.' It's not clear how many total members White Australia now has. has sought comment from Mr Sewell. A group needs at least 1500 members on the electoral roll in order to apply to register as a political party with the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC). Membership numbers of the major political parties are a closely guarded secret. The Liberal Party has around 40,000 members nationally, according to a 2022 estimate by former federal party treasurer Michael Yabsley. A more recent report in The Guardian suggested membership has been in steady decline, with around 9000-10,000 in Victoria and 8000-10,000 in NSW. The Labor Party had an estimated 60,000 members as of 2020, according to The Guardian. In a video shared to Telegram following Saturday's event, Mr Davis boasted the procession had been 'our biggest march in history'. 'People say that Melbourne is the left-wing capital of Australia — it's becoming the Nazi capital of Australia,' he said. 'It was quite something because the police just had to accept our presence. We've been treated very poorly by the police in the past. We've now grown large enough that they simply have to accept the fact that we want to march … We're all on a dopamine rush because we know this is just the beginning.' The march caused outrage and led Ms Allan to declare, 'Nazis don't belong in this country and they know it.' 'That's why they hide behind masks in the dark,' she said. Ms Allan announced a series of measures to crack down on protests in December, including bans face coverings as well as certain flags and symbols. The Jewish Council of Victoria urged the state government to act when parliament resumes next week. 'Eight months after promising anti-masking and anti-hate symbol laws, the government must act now,' it said in a statement. '(The NSN) are a tiny fringe, rejected by the overwhelming majority of Victorians, who proudly embrace our multicultural communities.' Victoria Police said officers responded to the protest to 'ensure public order was maintained'. No arrests were made but a man was allegedly assaulted when he confronted the group, a police spokesperson said. He was taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries and as of Tuesday, police were still investigating the incident. Footage circulated online appeared to show the moment a member of the public confronted the marchers and a fight broke out. Messages from Mr Davis to the group also boasted the march had been the 'top story on the news tonight'. He called on his followers to march again — next time, in a nationwide anti-immigration rally planned for August 31, which has police in capital cities on alert. 'This could be the beginning of something massive,' he said. In a post on Telegram, Mr Sewell wrote about the event, 'After only just arriving home from our summit today, I have been informed that foreign fifth columns are attempting to hijack our August 31st public rally for Australia. White Australians must assemble on August 31st against the traitors and foreigners who are trying to destroy our great nation.' But groups like Reignite Democracy, which sprung up against 'tyranny' during the pandemic, are furious about the link. '31st August is ruined,' the group wrote on social media. 'It had great potential, but something went wrong. Whether it was planned by extremists or hijacked by extremists, it doesn't matter. When the leader of the Nazis claims it as his event, there's no coming back from there.' On Saturday, NSN members from around the country gathered in country Victoria for their 'national conference' — one held at a caravan park in Ballan. Approximately 250 white nationalists were in attendance. Anti-fascist researchers from the White Rose Society, an organisation that has been studying neo-Nazis for several years, told they want to 'clear the country of their perceived enemies — Jews, Muslims, Asians and anyone not white and right-wing'. Importantly, they said they are careful about what they discuss in public — and it's not the same as what they say privately. 'In public they talk about 'remigration' — but we know in private they talk about executions and mass murder,' a spokesperson for the White Rose Society said. ''Remigration' is a sanitised word for genocide. To achieve their long term goals, they want to recruit members and sway public opinion in their favour. They do that through public stunts and sparking outrage.' The White Rose Society said the group's national conferences were always paired with 'some public stunt'. 'On previous occasions, state police in NSW and SA have disrupted these stunts so this time the group went 'sneaky Nazi' and filtered into Melbourne city in small groups, seemingly escaping police notice,' the spokesperson said. 'The neo-Nazis are claiming the march as a victory because they were unimpeded and their actions received widespread media coverage. However, what they don't want us to notice is that after five years of working hard to expand, they had around 100 men marching.' The spokesperson said 'it's not the victory they claim at all' but 'does follow a new pattern — one of their stunts was at 3am'. Mr Davis, meanwhile, is currently facing a charge of displaying a Nazi symbol on a belt buckle at an earlier march in Adelaide on Australia Day. His defence lawyer, Andrew Hopkins, has argued the allegation impinges on Mr Davis's implied constitutional rights to political expression. The 29-year-old, speaking outside court after a hearing in May, said he would go 'all the way' to the High Court to fight the charge. The next hearing is set down for September 23. SA Police arrested and charged 16 people with loitering and displaying Nazi symbols after the Australia Day rally, although charges against some of the men, including Mr Sewell, have since been withdrawn.
News.com.au
7 days ago
- Politics
- News.com.au
‘Nazi capital': Chilling message about Aussie city after neo-Nazi march
The organiser of a neo-Nazi march through Melbourne's CBD has issued a disturbing message describing the city as a 'Nazi capital'. About 100 masked members of the National Socialist Network (NSN) marched through Melbourne after midnight on Saturday, touting flags and a sign reading 'White Man Fight Back', while police looked on. The march was condemned by leaders of the Jewish community and politicians - among them Victoria Premier Jacinta Allan, who called the participants 'goons'. But the group has deemed the march a success and warned it was 'just the beginning'. In a video shared with thousands of followers in private messaging app Telegram, NSN figure Joel Davis boasted the procession had been 'our biggest march in history'. 'People say that Melbourne is the left-wing capital of Australia - it's becoming the Nazi capital of Australia,' Mr Davis said. 'It was quite something because the police just had to accept our presence. We've been treated very poorly by the police in the past. 'We've now grown large enough that they simply have to accept the fact that we want to march... We're all on a dopamine rush because we know this is just the beginning.' The march caused outrage and led Ms Allan to declare, 'Nazis don't belong in this country and they know it'. 'That's why they hide behind masks in the dark.' The Jewish Council of Victoria, meanwhile, urged the state government to act when parliament resumes next week. 'Eight months after promising anti-masking and anti-hate symbol laws, the government must act now,' it said in a statement. 'They (the NSN) are a tiny fringe, rejected by the overwhelming majority of Victorians, who proudly embrace our multicultural communities.' Victoria Police said officers responded to the protest to 'ensure public order was maintained'. No arrests were made but a man was allegedly assaulted when he confronted the group, a police spokesperson said. He was taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries and as of Tuesday, police were still investigating the incident. Footage circulated online appeared to show the moment a member of the public confronted the marchers and a fight broke out. Messages from Mr Davis to the group also boasted the march had been the 'top story on the news tonight'. He called on his followers to march again - next time, in a nationwide anti-immigration rally planned for August 31. 'This could be the beginning of something massive,' he said. The 29-year-old Victoria man is currently facing a charge of displaying a Nazi symbol on a belt buckle at an earlier march in Adelaide on Australia Day. His defence lawyer, Andrew Hopkins, has argued the allegation impinges on Mr Davis's implied constitutional rights to political expression. Mr Davis, speaking outside court after a hearing in May, said he would go 'all the way' to the High Court to fight the charge. The next hearing is set down for September 23. South Australian police arrested and charged 16 people with loitering and displaying Nazi symbols after the Australia Day rally, although charges against some of the men, including NSN leader Thomas Sewell, have since been withdrawn.
Sky News AU
09-08-2025
- Politics
- Sky News AU
'Freeze the blood of every Australian': Jewish organisation outraged by neo-Nazi rally in Melbourne, pleads with government to 'act now'
A leading Jewish organisation has made an urgent plea to the government after a bone-chilling neo-Nazi march shocked the streets of Melbourne's CBD. The disturbing scenes unfolded in central Melbourne in the early hours of Saturday morning as a group of approximately 100 masked men, associated with an Australian neo-Nazi group, staged an unauthorised march through the city streets. The procession, which moved past Bourke Street Mall just after midnight, saw individuals carrying an Australian flag alongside the black-and-white banner of the National Socialist Network - a far-right extremist group known for its white supremacist ideology and recruitment tactics. One man was seen holding a sign that read: 'White Man Fight Back'. In a statement, the Jewish Council of Victoria condemned the hateful rally and urged the Victorian government to ''act now''. 'Eight months after promising anti-masking and anti-hate symbol laws, the government must act now,' they said. 'Hate and menace again found its way in Melbourne's CBD last night,' the council said. 'A small group of neo-Nazis hid behind masks and darkness, ashamed to show their faces. 'They are a tine fringe, rejected by the overwhelming majority of Victorians, who proudly embrace our multicultural communities. 'They will not intimidate us. They will not divide us.' The council urged the Jewish community to stay strong in light of the terror. In a statement Victoria Police said it respects the "right to protest", but there is "absolutely no place for antisemitic, racist or hate-based behaviour in our society and police will not tolerate such activity". The group made its way through the CBD under the watch of police before moving to Flagstaff Gardens, where they dispersed just after 1.25am. Premier Jacinta Allan condemned the group in strong terms and promised tougher laws to come. Chair of the Anti-Defamation Commission, Dr Dvir Abramovich, compared the rally to a 'war parade' and said the horror scenes should ''freeze the blood of every Australian". 'Yesterday, Melbourne witnessed a scene that should freeze the blood of every Australian; an army of neo-Nazis marching in formation through our streets, their black uniforms slicing through the city like a blade,' Dr Abramovich said. '(It's) a chilling trailer for the full-length horror they are plotting.' He warned the group was 'shouting their evil manifesto in our faces'. 'They glorify violence, spread dangerous lies, target minorities, and feed off division. We have one chance to bolt the door on this movement before they force it open. 'History will not forgive inaction. The time to move is now. 'I call on the Prime Minister and Parliament to outlaw every neo-Nazi and white-supremacist organisation operating in this country. Not next year. Not after the next funeral. Now.' An increased police presence is being deployed in regional Victoria this weekend, with authorities monitoring a separate planned event west of the city. 'Police are aware of a planned event in Moorabool between 9 and 10 August,' the police statement read. 'There will be a visible police presence in the Moorabool area to prevent any breaches of the peace and maintain community safety.'
