Austrian far-right radical arrested after defying Swiss entry ban

Martin Sellner, 35, was invited to speak at a conference in Zurich – Copyright AFP/File Alex HALADA

Radical Austrian nationalist Martin Sellner, banned from entering Switzerland, was arrested Saturday having crossed the border.

The 35-year-old, who advocates mass expulsions of foreigners, had been invited by the far-right group Junge Tat, known for its anti-immigration and anti-Islamic views, to speak at a conference in Zurich on Saturday.

Swiss federal police said in a decision published earlier this month that Sellner “is banned from entering the Swiss and Liechtenstein territories from October 10-27, 2024”.

He was arrested by Swiss police on Saturday in the northeastern Thurgau canton, in the town of Kreuzlingen, which lies on the border with the German city of Konstanz.

“Shortly after 10:30am, a 35-year-old person was stopped by forces of the Thurgau cantonal police on Swiss territory in Kreuzlingen and taken away for further investigations,” a Thurgau police spokesman told AFP.

Earlier this month, Swiss federal police spokesman Christoph Gnagi told AFP that Swiss law “provides for entry bans as a preventive police measure when there are indications of a threat to internal or external security”.

Swiss police had prevented Sellner from addressing a far-right gathering organised by Junge Tat near Zurich in March and deported him.

He was also barred from entering Germany in March, following a meeting with the far-right AfD party that sparked an uproar in the country. But a German court overturned the entry ban in May. 

Sellner’s Identitarian Movement espouses the far-right white nationalist Great Replacement conspiracy theory, according to which white Europeans are being deliberately supplanted by non-white immigrants.

One of Sellner’s main proposals is that of “remigration”, expelling those without Austrian nationality “who are long-term unemployed” or that are living in “unassimilated parallel societies”.