Far-right Austrian nationalist Martin Sellner banned from entering Germany

Far-right Austrian nationalist Martin Sellner has been banned from entering Germany, days after he was deported from Switzerland.

Sellner, a leader in Austria’s ultranationalist Identitarian Movement, said in a video posted on Tuesday on X that German authorities sent his lawyer a letter saying he was not allowed to enter Germany for the next three years.

Sellner is known for his talk about “remigration” at a recent meeting of nationalist populists from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) that triggered large protests in Germany.

Identitarians belong to an extreme right movement that started in France and mainly campaign against immigration and Islam.

A spokeswoman for the Potsdam city authorities, from where Sellner posted his video on Tuesday, told the AFP news agency that an EU citizen had been served with a “ban on their freedom of movement in Germany”.

The person can no longer enter or stay in Germany “with immediate effect” and could be stopped by police or deported if they try to enter the country, the spokeswoman said, declining to name the individual for privacy reasons.

“We have to show that the state is not powerless and will use its legitimate means,” Mike Schubert, the mayor of Potsdam, said in a statement.

Swiss police said on Sunday they had prevented a large far-right gathering due to be addressed by Sellner, adding that he had been arrested and deported.

The meeting had been organised by the far-right Junge Tat group, known for its anti-immigration and anti-Muslim stance.

The group is a proponent of the far-right ethnonationalist “great replacement” conspiracy theory, which advocates for the deportation of immigrants.