Austrian identitarian activist Martin Sellner has been banned from Germany after the city of Potsdam obtained a national entry ban on the Identitäre Bewegung Österreich leader for the next three years.
Sellner — a prominent figure in the Neue Rechte (New Right) and Identitarian movements which advocate against mass migration and against the “Islamisation” of Europe — confirmed on social media on Tuesday that a rare entry ban obtained against an “EU citizen” by the German city of Potsdam was indeed against him. Sellner vowed to launch legal challenges to the ban, arguing that he has never been convicted of a crime and that the ban is based upon his opinions and writings.
The move was seemingly inspired by a January report from the Soros-funded Correctiv non-profit, which claimed that members of the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) attended a conference with Sellner in Potsdam where a so-called “secret plan against Germany” was hatched. The paper, which was based on second-hand reports, claimed that Sellner and others argued for the deportation of non-Europeans from Germany, even those migration background individuals who hold German citizenship.
The report sparked weeks of protests and negative press against the AfD, which had previously been surging in the polls amid increasing discontent with mass migration policies as well as the economic failures of the leftist coalition government of Olaf Scholz in Berlin. However, Sellner, members of the AfD in attendance, as well as members of the centrist CDU rejected the claims made in the report, insisting that no one at the Potsdam conference had advocated for the forcible removal of German citizens as was claimed. Sellner argued that his concept of “immigration” would envisage the German government providing incentives for ethnic minorities struggling to integrate into German society to return to their homeland voluntarily.
Nevertheless, using seldom-utilised powers, under Section 6 of the Freedom of Movement Act, the typically open borders government of Germany revoked Sellner’s right as an EU citizen to enter the country over an alleged risk to public order, broadcaster NTV reports. The decision came just days after Sellner was arrested and deported after attempting to hold a rally in the small village of Tegerfelden near the German border.
Germany is not the first European country to restrict entry from Sellner, with the Conservative government in Britain announcing that Sellner would be permanently banned from entering the UK. It came after Sellner and his wife and fellow activist Brittany Pettibone were refused permission to enter the country in 2018 to give a speech. Authorities barred him from entering on the grounds that he represented “a far-right group and intend[s] to incite racial hatred.”
Sellner’s ban from Germany also comes amid a campaign from the Social Democrat Party-led government to crack down on what they call a threat from right-wing extremism, and in particular, the populist Alternative for Germany party, which coincidentally has overtaken the SPD in polls. The efforts are being spearheaded by Antifa-tied Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser, who announced last month new powers for the government to monitor financial transactions of “far-right” networks as well as powers to prevent gatherings of “far-right extremists”.
Sellner singled out the interior minister, saying that his entry ban coincided with the government switching to “Faeser mode”.
“Part of me even welcomes that,” Sellner told the Heimat Kurier website. “Finally the masks fall and the fronts are clear. We, the democratic opposition, against them, the globalist censors.”
“We are definitely in a transformation phase. The system is not yet fully totalitarian. It is a bizarre hybrid. But Faeser and Co. confirm my thesis. The less money is available for a feel-good dictatorship for ‘bread and games’, the higher you have to drive the repression. I suspect that the elites know that we will have lean years to come. As a precaution, they want to eliminate, shoot and even lock out those voices and activists who can organize the democratic-patriotic resistance,” he commented.
The Austrian activist said that the move to prevent him from networking or giving speeches in Germany demonstrated the “ideological weakness” of the government in Berlin, declaring: “The repression smells of sweat of fear. It will only make us stronger in the long term.”