20 year-old that defaced signs across ANU with neo-nazi stickers plead guilty

On Monday 29 June, a man pleaded guilty in the ACT Magistrates Court for making a Nazi salute in public and "behaving offensively on Commonwealth premises" on separate occasions.

As reported in August last year, 19 year old Zachery James Hook was seen defaced the Tjabal Centre, BIPOC Base, and other multicultural signs across ANU. 

Some of the stickers used by Hook are from a Neo-Nazi group banned earlier this year as a ‘prohibited hate group’ under refreshed hate speech laws.

As the ABC reported, Hook, then 18, was originally charged following a raid on his home last Christmas Eve and has "no connection by study or work with the ANU".

In August 2025, an ANU Spokesperson told student media Woroni,

 “Our University should be a safe space for everyone, no matter their background, creed, race or gender. We were dismayed and disgusted to see this material. We take racist slurs and language very seriously and there is no place at ANU for this sort of vile hate.”

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