A prominent member of a neo-Nazi group has been arrested by the Australian Federal Police (AFP), the leader of the group says.<\/p>\n
National Socialist Network leader Thomas Sewell told a neo-Nazi group chat that Joel Davis, who spoke at a rally outside NSW parliament earlier this month, had been arrested in Sydney.<\/p>\n
The AFP did not identify Mr Davis but confirmed it had “undertaken operational activity in Bondi” on Thursday.<\/p>\n
“There is no ongoing risk to the community,” a spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
In a Telegram message last week seen by the ABC, Mr Davis invited members of a group chat to “rhetorically rape” federal independent Wentworth MP Allegra Spender with a link to an X post about the group’s gathering in Sydney’s CBD earlier this month.<\/p>\n
At the time, Ms Spender said she was “not easily intimidated” but was “shocked” by the comments and had referred the threats to the AFP, which confirmed it was investigating.<\/p>\n
Ms Spender declined to comment on Thursday evening.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The AFP says a 30-year-old man was arrested in Sydney on Thursday. (Supplied: Australian Federal Police)<\/p>\n
In a statement, the AFP said its national security investigations team identified an alleged menacing message on an encrypted online platform to a federal politician.<\/p>\n
It allegedly linked the arrested man to the message and a search warrant was executed on Thursday, with his electronic devices seized.<\/p>\n
AFP Detective Superintendent Jeremy Staunton said it took all reports regarding the safety and security of parliamentarians seriously.<\/p>\n
“The AFP supports freedom of speech and political expression but let it be clear any alleged criminal behaviour, including threats and harassment, will not be tolerated,” he said.<\/p>\n
“There is no place for violent extremist views, and the AFP will defend and protect Australia and Australia’s future from these threats.”<\/p>\n
The AFP said a 30-year-old man was expected to face the NSW Bail Division Local Court on Friday, charged with using a carriage service to harass a federal parliamentarian.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A prominent member of a neo-Nazi group has been arrested by the Australian Federal Police (AFP), the leader…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296766,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,170113,170116,170115,170114,77900,44,170118,4277,80612,170117],"class_list":["post-296765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-joel-davis","tag-joel-davis-arrested","tag-nazi-arrested","tag-nazis","tag-neo-nazis","tag-news","tag-nsn","tag-nsw-police","tag-thomas-sewell","tag-who-is-joel-davis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}