The Australian Government announced Thursday that it will introduce a bill next week to ban the public display of Nazi symbols, like the swastika or the Schutzstaffel (SS), in a context of a growing presence of extreme right groups in the country. The amendment to the Counterterrorism Law will penalize the display of these symbols with up to twelve months in jail and will also prohibit the sale of shirts, flags, bracelets or other artifacts with these insignia.

The regulations also provide for sanctioning the online publication of symbols that seek to promote Nazi ideology, Attorney General Mark Dreyfus explained in a statement. “There is no place in Australia for symbols glorifying the horrors of the Holocaust.“, Dreyfus specified, noting that, with the measure, the Australian Government sends a clear signal to “those who seek to spread hatred, violence and anti-Semitism” that these “disgusting” actions will not be tolerated.

The legislative proposal excludes the use of these symbols for academic, educational, artistic, literary, scientific or journalistic reasons or when they have a spiritual meaning in certain religions, the statement added. However, the bill, which is expected to pass the Canberra Parliament by the end of the year, does not contemplate the ban on the Nazi salute because it is a competence of the regional governments.

The measure of the Australian Executive comes after the state of Victoria, the second most populous in the country, prohibited the Nazi salute after registering some altercations last March in Melbourne, when neo-Nazi groups broke into a peaceful demonstration in favor of trans rights. Likewise, Victoria became the first Australian jurisdiction to ban the Nazi swastika in 2022, followed by Tasmania, which took similar steps last January.

In Australia, terrorist threats from the growing far-right account for about 30 percent of the current caseload for Australia’s domestic intelligence agency, its director, Mike Burgess, told a parliamentary committee last May. The display of Nazi symbols is prohibited in several countries around the world.like Germany or France, although in countries like Spain there are no specific laws that restrict its use, except for criminal purposes, while in the United States the First Amendment guarantees freedom of expression, which also opens the door for hate speech .