{"id":374551,"date":"2025-12-27T06:58:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-27T06:58:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/374551\/"},"modified":"2025-12-27T06:58:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-27T06:58:07","slug":"police-overseeing-bondi-terror-response-investigate-tattooed-man-at-newcastle-beach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/374551\/","title":{"rendered":"Police overseeing Bondi terror response investigate tattooed man at Newcastle beach"},"content":{"rendered":"

NSW Police are investigating a report of a man allegedly displaying an antisemitic tattoo on his ankle at a Newcastle beach.<\/p>\n

Ben Parsons was at Bar Beach with his family on Christmas Eve when he said he became concerned by the man’s tattoos, in particular one that appeared to be an SS Schutzstaffel symbol, the logo for the Nazi regime’s elite guard.<\/p>\n

He took photos of the man and made a report to Crime Stoppers.<\/p>\n

Mr Parsons said he found the tattoo “intimidating”.<\/p>\n

“Newcastle is very multicultural and to think [people of other cultures] go to the beach and have to put up with that \u2026 it’s just disgusting.”<\/p>\n

The SS was the Nazi organisation that carried out some of the worst atrocities in World War II, especially against Jewish people during the Holocaust.<\/a><\/p>\n

“It would be disgusting at any time, but a week and a half after a terrorist attack against Jewish people \u2026 absolutely disgusting, I thought,” Mr Parsons said.<\/p>\n

NSW Police confirmed in a statement that the Newcastle City Police District and Operation Shelter, which is overseeing the Bondi response, were investigating.<\/p>\n

“Police have commenced an investigation after receiving a report of a man in Newcastle on Wednesday [December 24, 2025], whose tattoo allegedly depicts a designated hate symbol,” the statement read.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

The man was reportedly seen at Bar Beach in Newcastle on Christmas Eve. (Supplied: Ben Parsons)<\/p>\n

The knowing display of Nazi symbols in public was banned in NSW in 2022, however, new Nazi conduct and symbol offences<\/a> were introduced following an antisemitic rally outside parliament in early November.<\/p>\n

Retired Supreme Court justice and chair of the Centre for Public Integrity, Anthony Whealy, said tattoos should fall under the laws introduced in 2022.<\/p>\n

“If [a tattoo is] observable, then I think that would fall within the definition of displaying ‘by public act’, a Nazi symbol,” he said.<\/p>\n

Section 93Z of the Crimes Act defines a public act as any form of communication or any conduct, including the wearing or display of signs, flags, emblems and insignia observable by the public.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“The definition is wide enough to capture the wearing or the public display of a tattoo on your body,” Mr Whealy said.<\/p>\n

“It would seem to me that if you have a tattoo on your body, it’s just the same as carrying a flag.”<\/p>\n

Police Minister Yasmin Catley said there was no place for alleged hate symbols in the community.<\/p>\n

“While I won’t comment on specifics while that investigation is underway, there is no tolerance for antisemitic slogans or symbols that glorify hatred in this state,” she said.<\/p>\n

“Everyone has a right to feel safe in the community, and police are working around the clock to stamp out hateful conduct.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NSW Police are investigating a report of a man allegedly displaying an antisemitic tattoo on his ankle at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":374552,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[9903,64,63,202297,5388,45233,167019,44,1158,202295,202296,202298,19399,36248],"class_list":{"0":"post-374551","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-australia","8":"tag-antisemitism","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-bar-beach","12":"tag-hate","13":"tag-nazi","14":"tag-nazi-symbol","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-police","17":"tag-schutzstaffel","18":"tag-ss","19":"tag-ss-symbol","20":"tag-symbol","21":"tag-tattoo"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374551","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=374551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/374552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}