Australians accused over Jewish museum gesture

A man accused of performing a Nazi salute outside a Jewish museum has claimed he was copying a Ricky Gervais joke.

Ryan Peter Marshall, 31, said he was making the gesture outside the Sydney Jewish Museum in Australia last year for ‘artistic purposes’.

He is one of three men accused of behaving in an offensive manner in public and knowingly displaying Nazi symbols over the incident, which came just six days over the Hamas atrocities in Israel last October.

In New South Wales, displaying a Nazi symbol carries a maximum penalty of 12 months’ jail time and a fine equivalent to £5,620, or both, but there is an exemption for artistic purposes.

Australia’s ABC reports that magistrates were show a clip of Gervais doing the salute after hearing that Mitchell told police he was mimicking the comic and ‘ just joking around’ when they were arrested.

Co-defendant Daniel Muston, 41, told the officer people had become ‘too sensitive’ nowadays,

Police prosecutor David Lanton told the court there was a difference a comedy show and the salute being performed, even as a joke, in public, The Independent reported.

Gervais performs the gag in his 2007 stand-up special, Fame, when he talks about how ‘Adolf’ has fallen out of fashion as a name, then mimics a teacher doing a roll-call – and a child with his name putting his hand up, akin to the salute.

He adds: ‘I do that quick so no one can take a picture of me doing that. Not a traditional subject for comedy, the old Holocaust.’ 

Magistrate Jennifer Atkinson will deliver her verdict on Marshall, Muston and co-defendent Anthony Raymond Mitchell, 32, later.

Published: 17 Sep 2024