Swiss police deport Austrian far- right activist Sellner

GENEVA — Swiss police said on Sunday they had prevented a hundred strong far-right gathering due to be addressed by radical Austrian nationalist Martin Sellner, adding he had been arrested and deported.

Saturday afternoon’s meeting was organised by the far-right Junge Tat group, known for its anti-immigration and anti-Islamic views. The group is also a proponent of the far right white nationalist Great Replacement conspiracy theory espoused by Sellner’s identitarian movement.

“To ensure public safety and prevent clashes with people from the opposing side, the speaker at the event was stopped and removed,” the regional police said in the statement, confirming Sellner was the speaker.

The police added that they had also been able to “prevent the arrival of political opponents” to avoid any possible confrontation.

Sellner, who advocates mass expulsions of people of foreign origin, had come to Tegerfelden to present his book on the subject.

The meeting was scheduled to take place in a hall in the small village of Tegerfelden, some forty kilometres  northwest of Zurich near the German border.

“After the owner became aware of the nature of the event, she cancelled the rental contract,” the police added, but Junge Tat refused to comply with the police’s demand to close down the event.

“They can handcuff me, but not our ideas. Remigration is inevitable!” Sellner complained in a social media post to X, formerly Twitter, after being issued with a two-month deportation order.

His removal attracted attention online, including from Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X, who asked “Is this legal?”.

A report by German investigative media Correctiv that Sellner had attended a meeting in Germany in November to discuss his plan for the mass expulsion of people of foreign origin triggered several days of marches against the far right by hundreds of thousands.