{"id":11005,"date":"2026-02-18T22:22:49","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T03:22:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/?p=11005"},"modified":"2026-02-18T22:23:24","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T03:23:24","slug":"dont-ever-let-them-tell-you-theres-free-speech-in-australia-brandan-koschel-jailed-for-a-year-for-calling-a-privileged-group-jews-the-enemy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/?p=11005","title":{"rendered":"DON’T EVER LET THEM TELL YOU THERE’S FREE SPEECH IN AUSTRALIA: BRANDAN KOSCHEL JAILED FOR A YEAR FOR CALLING A PRIVILEGED GROUP — JEWS — THE ENEMY"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Father, 31, jailed for one year for calling Jews \u2018the enemy\u2019 in Australia Day speech
February 18th 2026A Sydney father has been jailed for one year for calling Jews the \u201cgreatest enemy to this nation\u201d in a 40-second Australia Day speech.

Brandan Koschel, 31, pleaded guilty last week to publicly inciting hatred on the grounds of race, and appeared in Downing Centre Local Court on Wednesday by videolink from custody.

Deputy Chief Magistrate Sharon Freund said if not for his early guilty plea, she would have sentenced Koschel to 16 months\u2019 imprisonment for the statements, saying a custodial sentence was necessary to deter similar offending and \u201cprotect social cohesion\u201d. (Protect social cohesion? In a world where the lunatic inmates run the asylum?<\/strong>)

She said Koschel had not apologised or shown remorse or contrition, and set a non-parole period of nine months, backdated to Koschel\u2019s arrest on January 26, making him eligible for release on October 25.

Koschel\u2019s arrest after the speech: https:\/\/twitter.com\/i\/status\/2015679698379084170<\/a><\/strong>
The court heard Koschel got on stage during the open-mic section of Sydney\u2019s March for Australia rally in Moore Park, where he spoke out about new federal \u201chate speech\u201d laws that were passed days earlier.

Koschel was not charged under those laws, but under NSW legislation brought in early last year<\/strong><\/a>, which the magistrate emphasised was passed in response to an \u201cuptick in anti-Semitism\u201d to protect the Jewish community.

\u201cAll these politicians that came up here, spoke about bravery, all that bullshit, because they don\u2019t know what it means, they came up here, gave you a bunch of words, but none of them called out the fact that the hate speech laws were pushed by the Australian, uh, the Jewish lobby groups in Australia,\u201d Mr Koschel said in his speech, which was read to the court by Ms Freund in sentencing.

\u201cThey were behind it all. The Jews are the greatest enemy to this nation, they always have been, they are an enemy to Western civilisation, and for thousands of years, s Christians and Anglos, the White man, has known that the Jew is our greatest enemy. Free Joel Davis, hail White Australia and hail Thomas Sewell.\u201d
The magistrate noted that the charges only applied to the phrases calling Jewish people \u201cthe enemy\u201d, but said Koschel\u2019s final three statements added to the seriousness of the offence, and said they referred to \u201chigh profile neo-Nazis\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe offender\u2019s use of the term \u2018hail\u2019 is a deliberate invocation of language associated with Nazi ideology, and a tool of racial propaganda with harmful and powerful resonance; its use in the present context was offensive and serious,\u201d she told the court.

\u201cPublic denunciation of anti-Semitic expression is essential to the court\u2019s commitment to equality before the law and protection of vulnerable groups.

\u201cGeneral deterrence is paramount to protect social cohesion.\u201d
The court heard Koschel had only been able to contact his family twice during his 23 days on custody so far, which had been spent in \u201conerous\u201d conditions due to being housed in reception until February 9 because of jail overcrowding, and classified as high security by the government.
Koschel\u2019s lawyer, Daniel Grippi, told the court on Tuesday that his client\u2019s family had been followed and harassed by the media, and the coverage of Koschel\u2019s offending had impacted his young daughter, and argued that those circumstances would help to prevent reoffending.
But in sentencing Ms Freund said she disagreed with the lawyer\u2019s assessment, and said Koschel\u2019s concerns for his family highlighted his lack of remorse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere is no evidence he shows any remorse or contrition except for the impact on family; his lack of insight is relevant to the sentence, increasing the need for the sentence to reflect denunciation and deterrence,\u201d she said.

The offending included deliberate anti-Semitic hate speech of an overt nature, which occurred on Australia Day, when people come together for unity and social cohesion.

\u201cWithout evidence of remorse, I can\u2019t reassess the prospect of rehabilitation; only a sentence of full-time imprisonment is suitable.\u201d

On Tuesday Mr Grippi asked the court to impose a non-custodial sentence, citing the subjective nature of the term \u201chatred\u201d in the legislation, and saying \u201cone man\u2019s hatred is another man\u2019s love\u201d.

Ms. Freund said she \u201cdwelled on this statement overnight\u201d but came to the conclusion that Koschel\u2019s statements were not a matter of \u201ctaste\u201d and were the type of language the \u201chate speech\u201d laws were devised to punish.

\u201cThe laws were made in response to anti-Semitic acts, the legislative response and the introduction of [the racial hatred offence] was to target this conduct on the basis that violence starts with language,\u201d she said.

\u201cIn context, Mr. Koschel used the phrase \u2018hail White Australia\u2019 and \u2018hail Thomas Sewell\u2019; the words were divisive and designed to provoke the type of hatred the offence was designed to prevent.

\u201cMr Koschel\u2019s speech was clearly anti-Semitic and directed towards the Jewish community, which is particularly vulnerable, and that the legislation was designed to protect them, and after the Bondi massacre.

\u201cThe indication or normalisation of hatred directed at the Jewish people \u2026 will not be tolerated and [the sentence] must be used to deter others.\u201d

She found the speech, therefore clearly targeted the Jewish community to cause them to fear harassment, intimidation, or violence, and that Mr. Koschel \u201cused a mic to amplify his words on an iconic day that should have been about unification\u201d with the \u201cintention to incite\u201d, and was \u201cmotivated by hate and prejudice\u201d.

Last week Ms Freund sentenced paedophile soccer coach Tullio \u2018Tony\u2019 Giacomo Cigana to one year\u2019s jail with a seven-month non-parole period for possessing child abuse material.

She noted every video and photo he was caught with depicted real child victims aged between seven and 12, ABC News reported.
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Father, 31, jailed for one year for calling Jews \u2018the enemy\u2019 in Australia Day speechFebruary 18th 2026A Sydney father has been jailed for one year for calling Jews the \u201cgreatest enemy to this nation\u201d in a 40-second Australia Day speech. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[6219,6221,6220,6045],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11005"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11005"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11005\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11006,"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11005\/revisions\/11006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cafe.nfshost.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}