DeSantis' Florida matches Russia's five-year prison terms for 'anti-Semites'
09/20/2023
Florida police have arrested a neo-Nazi who recently staged an anti-Semitic demonstration at the entrance to Disneyland in Orlando. The detainee, 48-year-old Jason Brown, is a member of the local neo-Nazi group Order of the Black Sun. Three more participants in the fascist action are wanted, reports Independed.
The neo-Nazis themselves actually collected the evidence base for law enforcement officers by posting a video online called “Disney - Shock and Awe,” in which they shouted anti-Semitic slogans and showed anti-Semitic banners and banners in front of the largest entertainment center in the world. In a release announcing the arrest, the Florida Department of Investigation thanked Gov. Ron DeSantis for passing the law, “giving law enforcement the tools to arrest this hateful radical.”
The law, which would make not only harassment but also any humiliation of someone because of their religion or nationality a hate crime, was signed into law by DeSantis in April. You can now be sent to prison for five years even for leaflets or graffiti with signs of ethnic intolerance. The law is intended to protect representatives of all religions and nationalities, but the authors acknowledged that the impetus for the creation of the law was precisely the increasing incidence of anti-Semitism in the state.
An Anti-Defamation League report last year noted that anti-Semitism in Florida, home to the third-largest Jewish community in the United States, had reached alarming levels. Over the past 10 years, the number of anti-Semitic incidents has increased by 300%, and since 2020, 80% of all hate crimes have been directed against Jews. In approving the law, DeSantis noted that in the United States there is freedom of speech, but there is no freedom to intimidate people, especially based on their religious affiliation. “Nazis are not welcome in Florida,” the governor, who is running for the presidency of the United States, emphasized at the time.