Right-wing Austrian activist Martin Sellner has had his name entered into a German Federal Police “internal wanted database”, meaning he could be turned away if he tries to enter the country.
Sellner, the 35-year-old leader of the Identitarian Movement of Austria, was secretly added to the database this week amid ongoing outrage over a speech on remigration he gave to a meeting in Potsdam, near Berlin, late last year, Der Spiegel reported.
The private meeting involved representatives from the surging right-wing party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), and according to a disputed investigative report featured a proposal from Sellner on the mass deportation of millions of immigrants and unassimilated German citizens of foreign origin.
The report sparked government and opposition-backed “anti-Nazi” protests targeting the AfD, and Sellner can now be refused further travel if he is stopped at the border, a measure demanded by the far-left party The Left.
Sellner was permanently excluded from the United Kingdom on “security grounds” in 2019, and denied entry into the United States in the same year.
Meanwhile, even violent criminals who live in Germany illegally must now be provided with lawyers at the taxpayer’s expense to challenge any deportation decision by Federal authorities, thanks to an amendment secured by the Greens.
Björn Höcke, the AfD faction leader in the Thüringen State Parliament, took to Telegram to defend Sellner.
“It is becoming more and more absurd: Now that everyone can enter the country as they want and it is now apparently no longer possible to deport even notorious criminals without the right to stay,” Mr Höcke wrote.
“Martin Sellner is not aggressive and does not demand violence – against anyone. He was never lawfully convicted of a crime. His only weapon is his bright mind. Nevertheless, our government considers him a ‘threat to internal security’.
“He also does not apply for asylum, even though he is probably the most politically persecuted person in the German-speaking world.
“His crime is a wrong opinion – and, shamelessly, he also represents it very sympathetically. That’s why they hate him.”
Mr Höcke himself faces losing his basic rights as guaranteed by the the German Constitution, which would deprive him of the ability to run for office and vote in the September state election in Thuringia, where the AfD is the most popular party and polling at 31%.
A petition launched by left-wing activists demanding he be dispossessed of his fundamental rights now has 1.65 million signatures.
