Threats from white extremist group that 'tried to recruit Tarrant'
The leader of an Australian white nationalist group has made veiled threats of violence while also claiming he tried unsuccessfully to recruit the alleged Christchurch gunman Brenton Tarrant in 2017.
Lads Society president Tom Sewell said he approached Tarrant as a member of an online community, asking him to join a project to help create a "parallel society" of only white people.
Mr Sewell said his group did not condone violence "at this stage" but that "if you make the peaceful alternative impossible, you leave only the other option."
Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said all forms of extremism were taken seriously and that "using violence to force views on others is illegal and unacceptable."
Experts say the comments represent an escalation in rhetoric from the far-right after the mosque attacks that left 50 dead.
"They’re threatening to take violent action unless unreasonable conditions are met - that’s very, very worrying," Deakin University terrorism researcher Greg Barton said.
The Lads Society was founded by several former members of the United Patriots Front in late 2017, setting up club houses in Sydney and Melbourne.
The all-male group came to attention last year over fight club nights held in the club houses as well as an attempt by some members to branch stack the NSW Young Nationals.
The Herald contacted Mr Sewell to respond to comments he and Lads Society supporters made on Facebook about Tarrant on the day of the Christchurch attack.
Mr Sewell, 26, had written "this was not a false flag ... take my word for it" and that Tarrant "had been in the scene for a while", according to screenshots obtained by the monitoring group White Rose Society.
Mr Sewell told the Herald people in his scene had known of Tarrant online for at least three years. Although they never met, Melbourne-based Mr Sewell said Tarrant had multiple Facebook accounts and he approached him online to ask about possible Lads Society membership.
"The specific correspondence I had with him was that he didn’t want to be a member," Mr Sewell said. Tarrant was about to go to New Zealand. But Mr Sewell also said he inferred from Tarrant’s comments at the time, not just the subsequent attack, that he "didn’t believe there was a peaceful solution to European people being genocided".
The far-right use the inflammatory term genocide to describe their obsession with the idea that non-white immigration will lead to white people becoming a minority in Western nations.
Mr Sewell said he did not wish harm on any minorities but that he would see violence as an option "if the state continues its persecution of our people for wanting to preserve their culture and heritage" or if his members were arrested.
"The difference between my organisation, myself and him [Tarrant], is simply that we believe, certainly at this stage, that there is a peaceful solution for us to create the society we want to live in," Mr Sewell said.
"We want a peaceful alternative, we want to be treated with respect, we want to be left alone. If we are not given that opportunity, well, time will tell. I'm not going to give you any explicit threat but it's pretty f--king obvious what's going to happen."
Mr Sewell said "we’re all gravy at the moment" because police were leaving his group alone but that people were "making the world burn, and they have names and addresses."
ANU researcher Jacinta Carroll said while the Lads Society had an extremely small number of supporters, the language used by Mr Sewell indicated a possible shift from extremism towards support for illegal actions, including politically-motivated violence.
"The language used in this interview suggests a simplistic, black and white view of the world based around what this group would seek in an ideal future," Ms Carroll said.
Head of ASIO Duncan Lewis told a Senate estimates hearing last month that right-wing extremists represented a significant threat that had become "better organised" in recent years.
Mr Lewis said the agency had monitored the threat for decades and in the aftermath of Christchurch "there's no early evidence to me that there will be some dramatic reset around this."
Professor of Law at UNSW Luke McNamara said Mr Sewell’s comments would likely not amount to crimes or unlawful speech, partly because they did not identify a target.
"Australian laws in the vilification space are capable of dealing with the most blunt, explicit forms of racist expression; they are not especially adapted to dealing with nuance or subtlety," Professor McNamara said.
A NSW Police spokeswoman said "while we will not comment on specific investigations, individuals, or groups, we continue to monitor activities and rhetoric, and where necessary, take action."
Home Affairs Minister Mr Dutton said "the government’s countering violent extremism strategy addresses the drivers of all forms of violent extremism."
https://www.smh.com.au/national/threats-from-white-extremist-group-that-tried-to...
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