Prominent Austrian right-wing extremist Martin Sellner has been stopped by police while attempting to cross Germany’s southern border into Switzerland, media reported on Saturday.
Sellner filmed the incident at the Constance-Kreuzlingen border crossing and posted the footage live online.
The Swiss Federal Office of Police had imposed a temporary entry ban on Sellner on October 11 out of concern for public safety.
The police in the Swiss region of Thurgau confirmed that a 35-year-old person had been stopped and held for further investigations.
The person was “informed of the entry ban,” a spokesman said. They were then escorted to the border before leaving Switzerland again. The spokesman declined to say where that border crossing took place.
The authorities had been aware of a possible event planned by the right-wing extremist Swiss group Junge Tat (Young Action) with Sellner in the border crossing area and had prepared accordingly, he said.
An entry ban had also been imposed on Sellner in Germany. However, its implementation was initially postponed following his court appeal.
Sellner was the head of the far-right Identitarian Movement of Austria. He recently visited German cities to read from his book “Remigration.”
In the German-language context, extremists’ use of the term remigration usually supposes that a large number of people of foreign origin should leave the country – even under duress.
Authorities usually try to prevent such events, sometimes successfully. In Neulingen in the south-western German state of Baden-Württemberg, police stopped a reading in August and issued a residence ban for Sellner.
This was to prevent criminal offences, according to a police statement at the time.
