2024-03-16 18:54:18
The Austrian, who became known through the meeting in Potsdam, wanted to give a speech that evening in Tegerfelden, Aargau. That didn’t happen.
He wants to appear in front of a Swiss audience on Saturday evening: Martin Sellner, here giving a speech in Vienna in 2019.
Lisi Niesner / X02762
“Let’s go to Switzerland,” said Martin Sellner on Saturday morning as he drove off in the car. At the time, the 35-year-old Austrian right-wing extremist said he did not know whether he was banned from entering Switzerland.
Later, the self-dramatization continued on social networks: Sellner allowed himself to be filmed in a rubber dinghy on Lake Constance during his alleged border crossing – and mocked not only refugees in the Mediterranean, but also the Swiss security authorities.
At an event that was supposed to take place in Tegerfelden, Aargau, the man whose actions caused Germany and Austria to be in turmoil wanted to give a lecture that evening on “Ethnic Choice and Remigration.” Sellner was invited by the right-wing group from the Zurich area, “Junge Tat”.
Sellner himself also showed himself grinning on Telegram as he waited for his appearance in a bar. Police officers could already be seen on the video at the entrance to the restaurant.
Shortly after 6 p.m. on Saturday, reports began circulating that Sellner had been taken away by the police. The police operation was confirmed on site in Tegerfelden, Aargau. Several Aargau cantonal police vehicles surrounded the Aargau Cantonal Viticulture Museum, where the event was supposed to have taken place. The police confirmed on site that Sellner had been taken away.
It is not an arrest, but a stop, said Corina Winkler, spokeswoman for the Aargau cantonal police. The aim of this is to stop the event. As a rule, such a measure takes two to three hours, after which an expulsion will probably be issued.
A spokesman for “Junge Tat” said on site that the police had “stormed” into the room. The reason she gave for the intervention was that the event with Sellner was not politically tolerated. The police spokeswoman denied this and said the intervention was not for political reasons. The event was judged to be a threat to public safety. The reason was the fear that Sellner’s appearance would provoke confrontations. At 7 p.m. there were still a dozen police officers in the restaurant.
According to the right-wing extremist activists, the operators of the Aargau Cantonal Viticulture Museum were told “in real names” who they were and that “migration topics” were to be discussed that evening. Around 100 people were present.
However, the museum’s operators, a private association, were surprised by the nature of the event, as they say locally. A “panel discussion on development aid and migration” had been registered. Nothing was known about a connection with Sellner and the “Junge Tat”. The request arrived at short notice.
According to the museum’s operators, if they had known more, the restaurant would not have been rented out. They were made aware of this by the police on Saturday, their spokeswoman said. The museum’s operators then terminated the rental agreement. That’s why the police made it clear to “Junge Tat” that they had to call off the lecture. Because the “Junge Tat” did not comply, Sellner was then taken away. Because: without speakers there is no event.
Later that evening, Sellner announced on Telegram that he had been allowed to leave the police station again and was now being escorted by the police from the canton of Aargau to Zurich.
Zurich police demanded an entry ban
There had already been resistance to the planned lecture in advance. The Zurich cantonal police demanded that the federal government impose an entry ban on Sellner. The federal police Fedpol decides on the ban. She did not communicate the reasons why the cantonal police took this measure.
In principle, Fedpol can impose entry bans to protect internal or external security. Fedpol did not answer whether this happened in this case. This was not an issue with the Aargau cantonal police on Saturday.
The background to the excitement surrounding Sellner is the publication of the research network Correctiv. At the beginning of January it became known that Sellner had spoken to entrepreneurs and members of the AfD and the CDU about “remigration” in Potsdam in November.
The term stands for the mass deportation of foreigners with integration difficulties – a concept about which the new right-wing activist has already published extensively. After the research was published, there were nationwide demonstrations “against the right”.
The fact that the Austrian stages his entry as a show for his audience is part of his scam. He had already done so when he wanted to enter Germany. An entry ban for Sellner is currently being considered in Germany. There, too, it is not yet publicly known whether such a measure has actually been decreed.
Sellner’s hosts from the right-wing extremist group “Junge Tat” told the NZZ on Friday that they had not been informed about a possible entry ban until recently.
Because resistance was to be expected not only from the authorities, but also from anti-fascist circles, they tried to keep the exact location of the event secret. On their channels they only indicated two collection points in Aargau, from where the transport should then continue exclusively for welcome guests.
For the intelligence service, Sellner lacks a reference to violence
In the past, Bern has repeatedly imposed entry bans based on the Aliens and Integration Act. The key guideline is whether the person in question poses a security risk. If there are sufficiently solid assumptions, measures to keep people away can be imposed, specifically an entry ban, or, in the case of people without Swiss citizenship, expulsion. These orders can be appealed.
There is also the possibility that the State Secretariat for Migration takes measures. In these cases, it is not the threat to security that is the guiding principle, but rather the threat to public safety. An example of the latter is people who are believed to be rioting at an event: this does not endanger the security of Switzerland, but it does endanger public safety.
There have been repeated cases of entry bans in the past. They often affected people with an Islamist background.
The Swiss intelligence service NDB does not consider itself responsible in the Sellner case. When asked, he said that people who became ideologically or politically radical only fell into his area of responsibility when a concrete connection to violence could be identified. The mere fact that someone is a neo-Nazi or anarchist is not enough for the NDB to take preventive action with a view to upcoming events.
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