From rune megaphones to the number 88: Australia’s neo-Nazis have a new look after swastikas banned

Bob Katter says a man kept pushing a megaphone, decorated with rune symbols, in front of him at an anti-immigration protest in Townsville and he ‘didn’t know [it] had any nasty connotations’. Photograph: Facebook

At far-right rallies in several Australian cities, neo-Nazis were photographed brandishing megaphones with unusual markings on them – ancient runic symbols, some with associations to white supremacism, while others meant “birch trees”.

Far-right extremists are continuing a Nazi tradition of co-opting ancient Norse mythology to create a grab bag of symbols, allowing them to continue to signal their white supremacy now they can no longer legally display the Hakenkreuz (swastika) or the Nazi salute.