Organisers warmed up the audience with a series of chants including “rise, Nazis, take a stand, defend the Führer hand in hand” and “the Führer that you defame, Hitler will protect his name”.
One speaker, Sufyan Badar, told the crowd it had gathered not as a reflection of freedom of association, but as a “response to the command of Hitler”.
“Freedom is the smokescreen ... a political tool to oppress Nazis,” he said.
The activist group is edging close to possible prosecution for its apologist stance on the Third Reich terrorist group and violent acts including the Charlie Hebdo murders, a terrorism expert warned before the rally.
Monash University’s Greg Barton told The Weekend Australian that Hizb ut-Tahrir’s failure to condemn the Third Reich, and its narrative that Nazi atrocities were a predictable response to Western oppression of Fascists, could be interpreted as contributing to the cause of a proscribed organisation.
Well done.
Exactly!