Video hate on trial
A WESTERN Australian charged under racial vilification laws for allegedly circulating anti-Semitic videos on the internet appeared in a Perth court this week.
A WESTERN Australian charged under racial vilification laws for allegedly circulating anti-Semitic videos on the internet appeared in a Perth court this week.
Brendan Lee O’Connell, 38, is representing himself before a jury in the Perth District Court against seven charges related to a posting on YouTube of a verbal altercation he had with then Australasian Union of Jewish Student (AUJS) members. Each count carries a maximum jail term of 14 years.
Steve Lieblich, public affairs manager of the Jewish Community Council of WA, spent the first two days in court in support of one of the AUJS members, Stanley Keyser, one of four prosecution witnesses.
Another Jewish student Timothy Peach also appeared before the court via video link from London, and Monash University Professor Andrew Marcus gave video evidence from Melbourne on whether the Jewish people are considered a race under the Racial Vilification Act.
Perth Hebrew Congregation Rabbi Dovid Freilich will also appear via video link from Israel.
The YouTube posting stems from an altercation that allegedly began when a Friends of Palestine group was protesting the sale of imported Israeli oranges at a Perth supermarket. The two Jewish students called as witnesses were among a small group of AUJS members handing out flyers about Israel.
The online video, which has been seen by The AJN, features a man in Perth’s CBD vilifying Jewish people. The police allege the video targets Judaism and Jewish people.
Throughout the video, the man, believed to be O’Connell, variously speaks of the “Jewish, Zionist criminal network” and Jews as “racist, homicidal maniacs”.
He blames the Holocaust on “Jewish Zionist bankers” and attributes responsibility for 40 million Russian deaths to Jewish people. He also engages a Jewish youngster in an argument, screaming at him “You slaughter Palestinians as if they were ducks … you rape and kill their little children”.
DALIA SABLE
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