Flag Furore Reveals Politicians Are More Concerned About Symbols Than Civilian Deaths

The rogue state of Israel launched a full-scale attack in Beirut last Friday, which saw Israeli forces justify the levelling of six apartment blocks in the Lebanese capital, as, along with the hundreds of civilians killed, the attacks also resulted in the assassination of Hezbollah secretary general Hassan Nasrallah, who was an iconic figure in the Middle East and right across the globe.

So, on Sunday, at the 51st Gadigal-Sydney weekend rally against Israel’s yearlong onslaught in Gaza, there was much grief in the crowd, as not only had a spiritual leader been killed, but civilians of the sovereign nation of Lebanon had also been murdered, and this rally included displaying photos of the fallen cleric, as well as flags symbolising the paramilitary and governmental organisation he led.

During the rally, Palestine Action Group Sydney organisers warned that the flags were illegal. And beyond the display of them, Sydney Criminal Lawyers can attest to the fact that there was no untoward behaviour in the crowd as people were in mourning. And may rallygoers have relatives that have been harmed, killed or continue to have their lives threatened by the Israeli military forces.

But rather than take the special circumstances of the assassination into consideration in regard to the display, senior Australian politicians have not only demanded that those who did break the law in terms of flags be arrested and prosecuted over the matter, but opposition leader Peter Dutton and home affairs minister Tony Burke have called for these people to be deported.

And on Wednesday, it came to light that NSW police had arrested a 19-year-old woman from southern Sydney, in relation to a flag and charged her with a recently enacted law that makes the display of symbols of a prohibited terrorist group of which Hezbollah has been designated illegal, even though officers had seized two flags on the day, which had dealt with the issue in the moment.

Criminalising flags

The Australian federal police soberly announced on Monday morning that the displays of the Hezbollah flag didn’t meet the threshold of the crime that came into play last January, which is an offence that prohibits the public display of the symbols of prohibited terrorist organisations, which the government designates, under the terms of division 102 of the Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth).

Australia classified Hezbollah’s military wing as a terrorist organisation in 2003. However, the government noted eighteen years later that the group is a “multi-faceted organisation with political, social and military components”, and despite its holding two positions in the Lebanese cabinet at that time, the Morrison government labelled the entire organisation terrorist in nature in mid-2021.

The new federal law that the Sydney teen has been charged with and others may fall prey to was passed under the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment (Prohibited Hate Symbols and Other Measures) Bill 2023, which inserted the public display of terrorist organisation symbols into new section 80.2HA of the Criminal Code. And the new offence carries up to 12 months inside.

Passed on 6 December, the bill further criminalised the Nazi salute and symbols, after the National Socialist Network had been mobilising in Naarm-Melbourne last year. However, the public displays of neo-Nazism pre- and post the passing of the law, which included performing Nazi salutes outside state parliament in March 2023, hasn’t sparked a similar political backlash as has the flag episode.

The AFP explained that “the mere public display of a prohibited symbol on its own does not meet the threshold of a Commonwealth offence”, as the “Criminal Code sets out very specific elements” that must be met, which include that either the individual was disseminating ideas of racial superiority or hatred, or that they sought to “offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate” a targeted person or group.

And the offence sticks if it’s found a reasonable person would consider the display of the symbol as advocacy of hatred towards a targeted group or incitement of hatred towards them. And as the crime is an absolute liability offence, if a person is found guilty, the defence of honest and reasonable mistake or any other defence is not available to them, as this offence doesn’t allow for any excuses.

Dog whistling to the next election

Following the AFP’s initial finding that the threshold of the offence had not been breached, politicians from both major parties began calling for the people involved in the flag waving to be arrested and deported, which comes with a presumption that these people who were involved weren’t Australian citizens, when there was no proof of this whatsoever on the ground.

The reason the likes of Dutton and Burke can raise the deportation card is that section 501 of the Migration Act 1958 (Cth) requires the automatic cancellation of a noncitizen’s visa if they have been sentenced to at least 12 months prison time, whilst section 116 of the same Act permits deportation if a noncitizen is posing a risk to the “health, safety or good order of the Australian community”.

Yet, in much the same way that the Albanese government announced an envoy on antisemitism, while dragging its feet for months prior to announcing the Islamophobia envoy, federal MPs in their public display of outrage over the unfurling of the flags, are neglecting to respect the grief and anger felt by Lebanese constituents in the community who’ve had family threatened or harmed.

After the initial federal police finding that it would not be prosecuting anyone over the flag waving such was the backlash from Liberal leader Peter Dutton that the AFP appears to have determined to instead now investigate six flag-related incidents in Victoria that took place over the weekend.

Although, it should be noted that politicians demanding the arrest of civilians is an overstep.

Labor cabinet members have displayed measured handwringing of late, in response to the wholesale massacre in Gaza, which has been perpetrated by Israel for a year now. Yet, since the Netanyahu government unleashed the full thrust of its war machine upon the Lebanese public, Australian authorities have doubled down on championing the line that Israel has right to defend itself.

And this unbridled support from key local politicians for the US-funded Israeli forces’ actions in Lebanon, even though the Zionist state has been breaching international humanitarian law in terms of its genocide in the Gaza Strip, appears to be continuing as Tel Aviv considers that it can now take this same atrocity-ridden approach to terrorising the Lebanese people in their homeland.