1y ago

Neo-Nazis walk free from court, spared further jail time over attack on Victorian hikers

www.abc.net.au Neo-Nazis walk free from court, spared further jail time over attack on Victorian hikers

White supremacists Thomas Sewell and Jacob Hersant are convicted of violent disorder over a 2021 incident where far-right extremists ambushed a group of hikers.

"Good luck with the future, gentlemen," County Court Judge Kellie Blair said to the pair, as she stepped off the bench at the end of hearing.

79 comments

Shit's getting really bad. I mean I'm not sure what I think on the judgement, but the fact that there's people here walking around with Nazi symbols and openly literally becoming members of the National Socialist Network. How has it all gone so wrong and so... Weird.
- We've always had odd balls, arseholes, pointlessly angry people, racists, homophobes, all varieties of people out on the fringe of generally acceptable behaviours. Modern technology has allowed them to find community and sort of glob together much easier, be much louder and more visible, spread their particular brand of thought.
  Just my musings anyway. They were always there, the regular people were just more numerous and those on the fringe couldn't find each other so easily.
  
  I think we surpassed the "finding community" part long ago.
  These days white extremists are manufactured by other white extremists on social media -- the closest thing we've ever built to mind control.
  The underlying grooming strategies aren't much different to the ones Islamic extremists have been using on budding young suicide bombers for decades, they just throw in a few more memes.
  Oh and most importantly, profits. There's a lot of ad impressions and user engagement on the path from human being to far-right terrorist, eventually culminating in gun-based mass murder that is like Christmas for the gun lobby and for-profit media.
- We live under states, the right to use violence to protect ourselves and our community has been taken from us. The state is allegedly supposed to protect you so you don't need to use violence, but as we can see, the state has failed at this.
  There should not be NAZIs openly walking around -- they should not be able to make it out of their neighborhood.
- Social media. That is how.
- It has gone so wrong because liberalism has failed. We need political movements which serve the people, not the corporations.

This:
"In both your cases your prospects of rehabilitation are good," she said.
Does not really jive with this:
Sewell's reprieve came nine months after he was also spared jail by a magistrate for a separate incident, when he repeatedly punched a Channel Nine security guard at the network's Melbourne headquarters while on bail, as Hersant filmed.

They spouted homophobic and anti-Semitic slurs and walked off.
Chances of rehabilitation are good huh?

Victorian hikers
- Hikers from the Victoria state of Australia :P
- "I swear your honour, she came at me with her hat pin!"
- This was my first thought as well before I put two and two together lol.

“Good luck with the future, gentlemen”
What the, and I can't stress this enough, utter fuck? "Good luck with your future hate crimes, gentlemen"
- And one of these cunts was already convicted for assault (which the other Nazi filmed) but didn’t had to do jail time because of “his lack of criminal history”. So the excuse now is they have good prospects for rehabilitation. So the fucking judge thinks a violent repeat offender has a good chance at rehabilitation by doing community service. This judge is insane. Bet if it were anti-fascists they would be doing hard time.
  
  She's not insane, she's a fascist.
  If it was insanity, it'd be easier to understand her actions – she might not be completely completely in control of herself or aware of what she's doing. She knows what she's doing.
  
  I guess anti-fascists must be bad for business, or something.
- The judiciary has always been sympathetic to fascists. That was true in Weimar Germany as well. It's the reason brown shirts felt safe to beat up people in the street, there were no real consequences.
  
  True that, and it's not like it's exactly a surprise either
- It's such a weird thing to say.
  Also comments about recidivism. These assholes are anything but reformed.
- It sounds like it's in the context of sentencing and in the context seemingly of some discussion about their chances at rehabilitation so I imagine it was meant in that sense. "Good luck on your journey towards being not being a piece of shit any more". Doesn't sound like that journey is progressing very well though considering they immediately declared their innocence after entering guilty pleas and then spouted anti Semitic and homophobia remarks to the press outside court and walked off.
  
  Oh yeah that was how I took it, but you pointed out the problem yourself. It was either an astoundingly stupid decision, or a malicious one.

In 2017 Sewell attempted to recruit the perpetrator of the 2019 Christchurch mosque shootings into the Lads Society.
That’s just openly endorsing terrorism.
- The far-right do openly endorse terrorism. The funnel starts with people like Elon, Tucker, Peterson and Rogan and ends in Discord channels where mass shooters that hunt minorities are openly celebrated.
  When they're not doing that, they're brainstorming ways to breed more far-right terrorists, which almost always involves memes and identifying vulnerable communities.
  
  I’ve seen the dog-whistle memes and LGBTQ+ bashing but usually it’s not as blatantly unsubtle as this. (Well from what I’ve seen so far)

I like the TLDR bot but it could still use some fine tuning. It misses out on nuanced gems like: “Outside court, Sewell and Hersant told journalists they were innocent of the charges, despite entering guilty pleas.”
And
“They spouted homophobic and anti-Semitic slurs and walked off.”

Hey now Australia, I know we're all in a race to the bottom, but give the rest of us a chance.. 🙄
- MURICA: "HOLD MA BEER!"
  
  Yeah, in my mind it was implied that that's who we were all racing to catch up to, but I could have been more clear lol

On Thursday, Sewell told the court that he would be “very happy with a fine” and asked the court not to impose a conviction.
It's almost like the court is encouraging their violence
Sickening
- Well, it is Australia.
  They've made great strides recently but there's a huge cross section of society that seem like angry, hot-headed and intolerant people.
  But I'm a kiwi, so could just be projecting...

Australia is already run by organized crime. I guess fascism isnt too much of a stretch after that.

These fucking idiots need to be kicked in the dick to death.

Remember what is a good Nazi!

This is the best summary I could come up with:
Thomas Sewell and Jacob Hersant were on Friday convicted of violent disorder, over their role in a 2021 incident where far-right extremists ambushed hikers in regional Victoria.
"Good luck with the future, gentlemen," County Court Judge Kellie Blair said to the pair, as she stepped off the bench at the end of hearing.
Sewell previously spent about six months behind bars in the early stages of the case, after he was denied bail due to fears he would commit further offences and intimidate witnesses.
Hersant, who served three days of pre-sentence custody, was also allowed to walk free on Friday but will have to complete 200 hours of community work.
Sewell's reprieve came nine months after he was also spared jail by a magistrate for a separate incident, when he repeatedly punched a Channel Nine security guard at the network's Melbourne headquarters while on bail, as Hersant filmed.
On Friday, the court heard the pair were with about 25 other men from Nationalist Socialist Network and the European Australian Movement in the Cathedral Ranges State Park on May 8, 2021.
The original article contains 495 words, the summary contains 177 words. Saved 64%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

This happens in every settler colonialist country. They let nazis walk because they're ultimately on the same side.

And now one of them is reportedly under investigation for allegedly performing a Nazi salute after that court appearance: https://www.9news.com.au/national/victoria-news-first-person-to-be-charged-in-for-performing-nazi-salute-under-new-laws/accddf5a-d263-4a49-813c-3117adb674d1 (a law prohibiting Nazi salutes, displaying swastikas, etc... came into force in Victoria on the 21st October, 3 days prior to the court appearance).

Victorian hikers? Did they fucking travel back in time?
- Victoria was a British queen. Sometimes places are named after famous people. This website has a .au adress. It's Australian news. Australia was part of the British Empire when Victoria was queen.
  Did they fucking travel back in time?
  Yes. They travelled back in time from the 19th century/Victorian times to the 21st century.
  
  Irony, people! It's a fracking pun! And a funny one too 😤
- 😂 have my upvote!

Neo-nazis[citation needed]
- The article you didn't read.
  
  Except I did, the article is sourceless
- Easy block

79 comments