Police and demonstrators clash in Melbourne as Reclaim Australia and anti-racism demos meet. Photo: Screenshot.

An Australian writer was threatened with “turn on the gas” by a neo-Nazi gathered among demonstrators for a rally held by the nationalist Reclaim Australia group in Melbourne last Saturday.

“Is that a joke?” writer John Safran asked, and the demonstrator backed down.

“I’ve met Holocaust deniers before but this is the first Holocaust joke denier I’ve come across,” wrote Safran.

Later, “an emo-Nazi, lanky, dressed in black, with a Korean boy band haircut” called him a “Jewish parasite” and said Safran was only able to publish his books because of the Jewish masters behind everything.

Safran noted that the organizer of the anti-Islam far right United Patriots Front, a participant in the rally with whom these demonstrators associated, preferred however to eschew the neo-Nazi presence. He quieted another threatening protester and apparently sent away a rotund man with the swastika and Schutzstaffel insignia tattooed to his neck.

Police arrested four demonstrators as clashes erupted between protesters from Reclaim Australia and a nearby anti-racism demonstration.