{"id":299496,"date":"2026-02-19T16:55:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T16:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/299496\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T16:55:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T16:55:08","slug":"police-seize-art-posters-depicting-trump-putin-and-netanyahu-in-nazi-uniforms-from-canberra-bar-canberra","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/299496\/","title":{"rendered":"Police seize art posters depicting Trump, Putin and Netanyahu in Nazi uniforms from Canberra bar | Canberra"},"content":{"rendered":"

Police have seized art posters from a Canberra music venue and bar that depict world leaders and others, including Donald Trump and Elon Musk, wearing Nazi uniforms, and are investigating whether new federal hate symbol laws<\/a> were broken.<\/p>\n

David Howe, the owner of Dissent Cafe and Bar in Canberra\u2019s CBD, said his venue was shut down for about two hours on Wednesday night as police investigated a complaint about hate imagery relating to five posters in the window.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s ludicrous to be perfectly honest,\u201d he told Guardian Australia, describing the works as an \u201canti-fascist statement\u201d and noting the shut down had caused the cancellation of an interstate band\u2019s performance.<\/p>\n

By Thursday afternoon, less than 24 hours later, the posters were placed back in the windows, with the contents covered with the word \u201cCENSORED\u201d in red. Howe said he hoped patrons appreciated their return, describing them \u201cabsolutely\u201d as protest art.<\/p>\n

The posters, by protest artist group Grow Up Art, depicted various world leaders including the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu; the Russian president, Vladimir Putin; and the US president, Donald Trump, in Nazi uniforms.<\/p>\n

In a statement, ACT policing confirmed it had declared the cafe a crime scene. The five posters were seized and would be investigated to determine whether charges would be laid under hate symbols laws, it said.<\/p>\n

Five posters showing leaders in Nazi uniforms were seized from Canberra\u2019s Dissent Cafe and Bar and will be investigated to determine whether charges will be laid under hate symbols laws. Photograph: Supplied<\/p>\n

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\u201cACT Policing remains committed to ensuring that alleged antisemitic, racist and hate incidents are addressed promptly and thoroughly and when possible criminality is identified, ACT Policing will not hesitate to take appropriate action,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n

The ACT government\u2019s police minister, Marisa Paterson, said she had heard the community concern about the venue\u2019s shutdown and was seeking \u201cfurther clarification about the circumstances surrounding the events that took place\u201d.<\/p>\n

Guardian Australia understands it is the first complaint about alleged hate imagery received in the nation\u2019s capital following laws passed earlier this year<\/a> in the wake of the Bondi shooting.<\/p>\n

About 20 people had gathered at the venue at about 7.15pm when three police officers showed up, Howe said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was, at first, quite shocked. I mean, I couldn\u2019t quite believe that they were \u2026 these are artistic works,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one was to touch the posters until they\u2019d been removed by the police.\u201d<\/p>\n

The police statement said they \u201chad a discussion with the owner, with officers seeking to remove the posters as part of their investigation into the matter\u201d, but the owner declined, leading police to declare the venue a crime scene.<\/p>\n

Howe disputed this claim: \u201cIf they had specifically asked me to remove the posters, I would have simply taken the posters down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Howe was told to wait for a serious crimes unit to arrive from Gungahlin, around a 25-minute drive, to remove the posters. The police left after 9pm, he said.<\/p>\n

Under laws passed in January<\/a>, hate symbol display offences don\u2019t apply if it\u2019s deemed for a religious, academic, educational, artistic, literary or scientific purpose and not contrary to the public interest.<\/p>\n

\u201c[The posters] are an anti-fascist statement. It speaks to authoritarian regimes around the world. Police states are just symptomatic of that,\u201d Howe said.<\/p>\n

The federal ACT senator David Pocock said art is a \u201clegitimate form of political dissent\u201d and it was important police protected against hate and prohibited symbols while also \u201cpermitting peaceful protest\u201d.<\/p>\n

The federal Greens justice spokesperson, David Shoebridge, said federal hate symbol laws were being weaponised against \u201cpeople who use their conscience to speak out for humanity\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cPauline Hanson can spend decades demonising Muslims in the Senate and the media but stick \u2018punch a Nazi\u2019 on your wall in Canberra and the AFP comes knocking,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cLaws rushed through parliament to fight antisemitism are now being used to attack people fighting fascism. These laws were never seriously about hate, they have always been about shutting down dissent.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ACT independent MLA Thomas Emerson said he\u2019d written to the ACT police minister on Thursday morning to ask why the legislation\u2019s exemptions for artistic purposes hadn\u2019t been applied in this instance.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis seems pretty Orwellian to me,\u201d Emerson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn attempting to foster social harmony by preventing offence, we can\u2019t afford to create more division. Government suppression of artistic expression and dissenting voices is incredibly divisive.\u201d<\/p>\n

This story was amended on 19 February 2026. An earlier version stated hate symbol display offences don\u2019t apply if a symbol in question runs contrary to public interest. This should have stated the offences don\u2019t apply as long as the symbol does not run contrary to public interest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Police have seized art posters from a Canberra music venue and bar that depict world leaders and others,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":299497,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-299496","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}