MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — A self-described Nazi became the first person in Australia to be sentenced to prison for performing an outlawed salute when he was ordered by a magistrate on Friday to spend one month behind bars.
Jacob Hersant, 25, is also the first person in Victoria state to be convicted of giving the Nazi salute. The gesture has been outlawed nationwide since he committed the offense.
He was convicted in the Melbourne Magistrates Court last month of performing the straight-armed salute before news cameras outside the Victoria County Court on Oct. 27, 2023. Hersant had then just avoided a prison sentence for causing violent disorder. The Nazi salute had been outlawed by the state parliament days earlier.
Magistrate Brett Sonnet allowed Hersant to remain free on bail after he was convicted, until Friday, when he was sentenced to one month in prison.
But Hersant spent only an hour in custody before his lawyer, Tim Smartt, succeeded in a bail application after lodging an appeal against his conviction and sentence.
Hersant faced a potential maximum sentence of 12 months in prison plus a 24,000 Australian dollar ($16,025) fine.
Smartt said Hersant should not be jailed for a nonviolent act.
“It’s not justified sending a 25-year-old to prison. That is wrong,” Smartt told the magistrate.
Sonnet said a prison sentence was appropriate.
“If there was physical violence, then I would have imposed a sentence close to the maximum penalty,” Sonnet said. “The accused sought to promote Nazi ideology in the public arena and the court is satisfied he took advantage of the media to disseminate extreme political views.”
Hersant was a member of the National Socialist Network, an organization that promoted white supremacy, deportation of immigrants and far-right actors, Sonnet said.
While performing the salute last year, he praised Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and said, “Australia for the white man.”
Sonnet said his words were “clearly racist and seek to promote white supremacy in Australia.”
“Put bluntly, the white man is not superior to any other race of people,” Sonnet said.
Hersant’s lawyers had argued that his comments and salute were protected by an implied constitutional freedom of political communication.
On his way into court on Friday, Hersant maintained he had a right to express his political views.
“We’re going to argue that the law is constitutionally invalid and it’s emotional and it’s anti-white,” Hersant told reporters. “It’s my political view and I think it’s a good fight for us to have an argument in court saying these laws are invalid.”
Three men were convicted in June of giving the salute at a Sydney soccer game. Another three men were convicted last month of making the gesture outside the Sydney Jewish Museum. All were punished with fines.
Anti-Defamation Commission chair Dvir Abramovich, a leading opponent of antisemitism in Australia, said Hersant's prison sentence should remind Nazi sympathizers that Australia shows “no mercy to those who bring symbols of terror to our streets."
“This isn’t just a sentence — it’s a national roar that symbols of Nazism have no place on our soil,” Abramovich told reporters outside court.
CORRECTS TO JACOB HERSANT, NOT TIM SMARTT - Jacob Hersant speaks outside the Melbourne Magistrates' Court in Melbourne, Australia, Friday, Nov. 8, 2024, before his is sentenced after he was convicted for performing the Nazi salute. (AP Photo/Rod McGuirk)
Tim Smartt, the lawyer for Jacob Hersant, arrives at Melbourne Magistrates Court in Melbourne, Australia, Nov. 8, 2024, for Hersant's sentencing after he was convicted for performing the Nazi salute. (AP Photo/Rod McGuirk)
NEW YORK (AP) — Melinda French Gates is offering to match up to $1 million in gifts to two nonprofit organizations to help spur donations on GivingTuesday, which has become a major annual fundraising day for nonprofits.
For more than a decade, on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, charitable organizations have asked for donations or other support from their networks.
“It’s a great time to remind people that we’re better off when we give something back and we all have something to give back,” said French Gates in an interview, speaking about her enthusiasm for GivingTuesday. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation was an early supporter of GivingTuesday, which started as a hashtag and a project at the 92nd Street Y in New York and has since become its own organization.
Last year, donors gave an estimated $3.1 billion on GivingTuesday, but the overall number of people who participated declined. Asha Curran, CEO of the nonprofit GivingTuesday, who calculated that estimate, said matches like French Gates' help catalyze people to give.
“We really share a commitment to the idea also that philanthropy is not just in the hands of the ultra wealthy," she said. "That it really takes everyone to contribute to a healthy society through generosity.”
Una Osili, associate dean at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, says that even if fewer households are giving, donations may be holding steady because those who donate are giving more.
“The optimist in me would certainly say there are lots of reasons to think that giving will at least hold steady," Osili said. "But what we’ve seen in the past few years is that inflation especially, even though it’s moderated, is a concern for many everyday households.”
French Gates, through her organization Pivotal, plans to match up to $500,000 in donations to two organizations — Vote Mama Foundation, which supports mothers running for political office, and the Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregivers, which advocates for people caring for others. The organizations have 10 days to raise the funds and will direct donors to give through the nonprofit crowdfunding platform Every.org, which will track the donations that will be matched.
“This was Melinda. This was a complete surprise to us,” said Liuba Grechen Shirley, founder and CEO of Vote Mama Foundation.
Her organization wants to make it easier for mothers to hold political office, from local school boards to the Senate. She founded the organization after running for Congress in 2018 when she successfully petitioned the Federal Election Commission to use campaign funds to pay for childcare. Now, all federal candidates can pay for childcare with campaign funds and many states have passed similar laws.
“It’s used by men. It’s used by women. It’s used by moms and dads and Democrats and Republicans,” Grechen Shirley said. “But the majority of funds are used by women, and a majority of those funds are used by women of color. So it really does have the ability to transform the political landscape.”
Through her giving and advocacy, French Gates has championed paid family leave, support for caregivers and making child care less expensive. She endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential race but said that Harris' defeat won't stop her from continuing her work.
The Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregivers is one of the first organizations to speak out about the work of caregiving, French Gates said. Paurvi Bhatt, who leads the institute, said French Gates had a long and cherished relationship with former First Lady Rosalynn Carter, who passed away last year.
“It is based on a hand-in-glove relationship we’ve had for a number of years,” Bhatt said of the matching gift.
This public match on GivingTuesday is the latest commitment French Gates has made since stepping down from the Gates Foundation in May. (French Gates and Bill Gates, her ex-husband and the billionaire co-founder of Microsoft, announced their divorce in 2021.) She pledged $1 billion to support women and families over two years. That included $250 million to support improving women's health globally and she gave 12 leaders each $20 million to distribute to nonprofit organizations of their choice before the end of 2026.
“The reason I’ve come out so strongly saying, ‘This is what I am doing next,’ is because I wanted people to know I’m not going away,” said French Gates. “My values are still here. And this work around ‘How do we make a more equitable society?’ There is so much work to be done in the United States.”
The Associated Press receives financial support for news coverage in Africa from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and for news coverage of women in the workforce and in statehouses from Pivotal Ventures.
Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.
Asha Curran, the CEO of GivingTuesday, poses for a photo on Monday, Nov. 25, 2024 in New York. (AP Photo/Stefan Jeremiah)
Asha Curran, the CEO of GivingTuesday, poses for a photo on Monday, Nov. 25, 2024 in New York. (AP Photo/Stefan Jeremiah)
FILE - Melinda French Gates speaks at the Seminar: Digital Public Infrastructure: Stacking up the Benefits, during the World Bank/IMF Spring Meetings at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) headquarters in Washington, April 14, 2023. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)
