CANBERRA: Australia’s government plans legislation to ban swastikas and other Nazi symbols nationwide due to an increase in far-right activity, attorney-general Mark Dreyfus said Thursday.
While most Australian states already ban such Nazi symbols, the federal law would go further by also banning the trade in such material, Dreyfus said.
“There’s been a rise in this kind of violent far right activity. We think it’s time for there to be a federal law which I’ll be bringing to the Parliament next week,” Dreyfus told Nine Network television.
We’ve got responsibility for import and export. We want to see an end to trading in this kind of memorabilia or any items which bear those Nazi symbols,” Dreyfus said. “There’s no place in Australia for spreading of hatred and violence.”
The Labour Party government controls the House of Representatives but not the Senate, and it’s unclear when a ban might pass or take effect. The law would include a penalty for people displaying Nazi symbols of up to a year in prison.
Displaying symbols for religious, educational or artistic purposes would be among a range of exclusions from the ban. It will not affect the use of the swastika for people observing Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism.
Dreyfus, who is Jewish, said the number of neo-Nazis was small, but the main domestic spy agency, the Australian Security Intelligence Organization, had raised concerns about their activity in the past three years.
“This is a very small number of people. I’m hoping it’s getting small and it will eventually disappear,” he told Australian Broadcasting Corp.
Australia plans to ban swastikas and other Nazi symbols in legislation coming next week
https://arab.news/5t8f3
Australia plans to ban swastikas and other Nazi symbols in legislation coming next week
- Law would include a penalty for people displaying Nazi symbols of up to a year in prison
- Displaying symbols for religious, educational or artistic purposes would be among a range of exclusions from the ban
‘Unofficial’ talks on plastic pollution treaty to begin in Japan
- “Plastic pollution is a planetary problem that affects everyone: every country, every community and every individual,” Cordano warned after being elected
TOKYO: Delegates from around 20 countries will hold three days of “informal” talks in Japan from Sunday aimed at salvaging efforts toward a landmark global treaty on plastic pollution.
Supposedly final talks in South Korea in 2024 toward an agreement failed, and a renewed effort in Geneva last August likewise collapsed in overtime.
A Japanese Environment Ministry official said that the “informal” closed-door meeting among “working-level officials” through Tuesday was not expected to result in any official announcement.
If we don’t take concerted action, it will get much worse in the coming decades. A treaty is urgently needed.
Julio Cordano, Chile’s chief climate negotiator
“Japan is in a position of pushing for progress on the issue, and so is hosting the meeting,” the official told AFP without wishing to be named.
She added that “little progress” has been made since August, other than the election in early February of Chile’s chief climate negotiator Julio Cordano as chairman.
“Plastic pollution is a planetary problem that affects everyone: every country, every community and every individual,” Cordano warned after being elected.
“If we don’t take concerted action, it will get much worse in the coming decades. A treaty is urgently needed,” he said.
More than 400 million tonnes of plastic are produced globally each year, with half for single-use items.
A large bloc of states wants bold action such as curbing plastic production, while a smaller clutch of oil-producing states wants to focus more narrowly on waste management.
Countries expected to be present in Tokyo include big oil producers like Saudi Arabia, Russia and the United States as well as islands states Antigua and Barbuda and Palau, plus China, India and the European Union.
The UN’s environment chief told AFP in an interview in October that a global treaty remains “totally doable.”
“No one has walked away and said, ‘this is just too hopeless, we’re giving up’,” United Nations Environment Programme executive director Inger Andersen said.
