Police have seized art posters from a Canberra music venue and bar that depict world leaders and others, including Donald Trump and Elon Musk, wearing Nazi uniforms, and are investigating whether new federal hate symbol laws were broken.
David Howe, the owner of Dissent Cafe and Bar in Canberra’s CBD, said his venue was shut down for about two hours on Wednesday night as police investigated a complaint about hate imagery relating to five posters in the window.
“I think it’s ludicrous to be perfectly honest,” he told Guardian Australia, describing the works as an “anti-fascist statement” and noting the shut down had caused the cancellation of an interstate band’s performance.
By Thursday afternoon, less than 24 hours later, the posters were placed back in the windows, with the contents covered with the word “CENSORED” in red. Howe said he hoped patrons appreciated their return, describing them “absolutely” as protest art.
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- manxu@piefed.socialEnglish4 months
I get that police would investigate: go to the venue, look at the posters, if they glorify Nazis or the ideology, take them down and arrest everyone.
But that seemed like an obvious statement against Nazis and politicians the behave like them, I guess it was good publicity, anyway.
- TheEighthDoctor@lemmy.zipEnglish4 months
That would require the police to have the mental capacity to understand nuance
- 4 months
Even if it was glorifying nazis, that’s still protected by the 1st Amendment. The police had no business stealing these properties from the owner.
- 4 months
Our first amendment changed the starting date of senators’ terms (from January to July) to better align with elections.
How does that apply here?
- 4 months
The article, URL, and snippet posted in the body of the post make it clear this was not in the US.
- 4 months
I don’t think you get how that relationship works. At best you’ll get a “tut tut, be less obvious”
- 4 months
Judges start as lawyers, sometimes defense lawyers. The typical lawyer demographic is also not much like the demographic of the typical cop. And, you can just check for yourself that cops do lose in court.
- 4 months
The trump and Nyetnu (fuck it, I ain’t double checking spelling) posters are obviously satire, but I could see an argument that someone might be confused on the other three if there wasn’t the obvious context of everything else going on around them.
- 4 months
Satire’s the first word that popped into my head, but now that I’m probably overthinking it, is there a better term for this kind of commentary?
- 4 months
Cops aren’t just bastards, they’re often dumb as bricks. No surprise they don’t know the difference between “content criticising Nazism” and “content praising Nazism”.
- 4 months
Sometimes it’s not that they’re too dumb not to understand, it’s that they understand but no one will stop them from enforcing however they deem fit. If they support these fascists (cops, so it’s likely) then they’ll happily apply this to clearly anti Nazi stuff and give a free pass to actually hateful things aimed at minorities since those are clearly artistic. Cops doing cop stuff.
- 4 months
I hope he replaces them with photos of the police officers in a Nazi uniform.
- 4 months
For dumb folks like me, Canberra is the capital of Australia
- lambalicious@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish4 months
You can’t leave us hanging by not sharing the posters! At least the article doesnt’t show them, not on direct link.
- 4 months
While your statement is true, I was only pointing out they don’t have the first amendment.
(Yes, it is bad the police seized this stuff)
- 4 months
Our first amendment changed the starting date of senators’ terms (from January to July) to better align with elections.
How does that apply here?
