Jon Minadeo, head of the neo-Nazi Goyim Defense League, was arrested while protesting against Jews outside the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland.
Jon Minadeo II was arrested on Sunday, September 4, while protesting against Jews at the gates of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. Minadeo is the leader of the Goyim Defense League, also known as GDL, an antisemitic internet troll and conspiracy theorist network of public personalities active across several social media websites, primarily YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Gab.
Minadeo has used Petaluma, California, as a home base for creating and distributing antisemitic literature for several years. However, he is now known to have moved to Florida with his girlfriend. He wrote about his arrest in Poland on the conservative social media platform Gab.
”Got handcuffed & arrested in Poland today for (((Hate Speech))) regarding Auschwitz,” Minadeo wrote. ”Just got released tonight with a fine and my chains and computer temporarily confiscated. Life’s good! You can’t keep me down Jews!”
The three parentheses around ”Hate Speech” are a device first used by bigots to single out Jews online and later adopted by members of the faith to identify themselves in a gesture of defiance, writes The Jerusalem Post.
Along with his post on Gab, Minadeo also posted a photo of his protest at the concentration camp. He can be seen smiling alongside an accomplice whom the Anti-Defamation League identified as Robert Wilson. Both are wearing casual clothing and are holding up handmade banners. Wilson’s reads ”Shoah the ADL” — Shoah, the Hebrew word for ”catastrophe,” is commonly used by Jews to denote the Holocaust. Minadeo’s sign attacks Anti-Defamation League CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt.
Minadeo’s activity was first reported in February by the Press Democrat in relation to antisemitic flyers that appeared in Napa, California, bearing the imprint of GoyimTV, Minadeo’s media brand. Similar cases occurred in the Bay Area and elsewhere; however, Minadeo’s complicity is difficult to prove since the flyers are printed and not handmade.
Since then, Minadeo’s activity has become heavier, both on his GoyimTV channel and in person. He has been making road trips during which he and his accomplices hang antisemitic banners or taunt people at synagogues and Jewish centres.
Unlike most European countries, the United States’ laws do not strictly prohibit Nazi propaganda. Hence, law enforcement agencies can do little unless a perpetrator explicitly threatens a religious or ethnic group.
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