Teenager Sarah Mouhanna charged for displaying ‘prohibited terrorist symbol’
A 19-year-old has been charged following protests on Sunday, where some waved Hezbollah flags and held portraits of slain terrorist leader Hassan Nasrallah.
A Sydney teenager has been charged with displaying a terrorist organisation’s symbol at protests on Sunday commemorating slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Sarah Mouhanna, 19, was on Wednesday afternoon charged with “cause public display of prohibited terrorists organisation symbol” after she presented to Kogarah Police Station following a public appeal.
She was granted strict conditional bail, and will face the Downing Centre local court on October 23.
Ms Mouhanna is understood to be the first person to have been formally charged by police following huge rallies across Sydney and Melbourne on the weekend.
Thousands of protestors gathered in the city CBDs to commemorate Nasrallah, whose death was confirmed by the Israeli Defence Forces and the Iran-backed militant group on Saturday in a massive air strike on Beirut.
The protestors, who were mostly young men, were filmed in Melbourne waving Hezbollah flags, wearing the group’s emblem and chanting “labayka ya Nasrallah” in Arabic, which translates to ‘at your service, Nasrallah’ or ‘here I am, Nasrallah’.
Other chants heard include ‘no more USA, no more Israel, no more Saudi Arabia’.
In Sydney, both adults and children carried posters of the late Hezbollah leader. A couple of others were seen holding and wearing Hezbollah flags. One woman held a poster showing assassinated Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and Hezbollah leader Nasrallah under the words “A nation led by martyrs will triumph”.
It was the biggest Gaza solidarity rally in Sydney in months, with up to 2000 people in attendance, following air strikes in Beirut on Saturday night.
The protests have been running weekly since late 2023.
Victoria Police have referred all cases from the Melbourne protests to the AFP.
Politicians have widely condemned the Hezbollah flags and insignia that appeared in Sydney and Melbourne on Sunday.
Palestine Action Group, which runs the weekly protests, said media attention on the “presence of some Hezbollah flags at the rally” was a “distraction” and a “hypocritical and racist scare campaign”.
“This scaremongering about some flags is designed to distract from Israel’s crimes and to intimidate Israel’s critics into silence,” it said.
Adam Lippmann, an Australian Jew of Iraqi descent, earlier this week described the fear he felt at being “exposed and targeted” in a 150-person strong “sea of zealous, terrorist supporters” at a Gaza and Lebanon solidarity rally in Sydney, with one man allegedly calling him a “Zionist faggot” and another throwing his phone on to the tram tracks.
He told The Australian he took a photo of a masked man carrying a framed image of Nasrallah,
“When I took a photo of this guy, he … spotted that I took a photo.
“He came up to me and he just said ‘We all know who you are. You’re a f..king Zionist faggot. You’re a f..king Zionist, get the f..k out of here.
“He spotted me from a distance and picked this fight of anti-Semitic, homophobic abuse.”
Another younger man, about 25, then approached him, grabbed his phone and threw it on to the tram tracks, damaging it.
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