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IMMIGRATION

Armed youths attack Tyrol refugee centre

Police in Tyrol are investigating an attack on the Bürglkopf refugee centre near the market town of Fieberbrunn on Wednesday evening.

Armed youths attack Tyrol refugee centre
The Bürglkopf centre. Photo: APA/EXPA/JFK

Five youths were heard shouting xenophobic slogans at around half past midnight, 35 metres away from the remote property.

They then shot a gun in the air and reportedly threw fireworks at the centre’s windows.

The youths were dressed in black hooded jackets and shouted things like “foreigners out” and “we’re going to kill you, pigs”, according to an anonymous witness quoted in profil magazine. 

The Bürglkopf centre is on a mountain at an altitude of 1,400 metres and was transformed from countryside accommodation into a federal care institution this year.

The State Office for the Protection of the Constitution said that witnesses are currently being interviewed and the centre is under police protection.

The Interior Ministry denied reports that residents were on a hunger strike. "Only one out of 130 residents talked about going on hunger strike," Interior Ministry spokesman Karl-Heinz Grundböck said in an interview with the Austrian Press Agency.

He added that some of the refugees had asked to be moved to another centre, which he said was understandable. "It’s natural that people are feeling confused," he said. However he said that closing the centre was not an option.

Mayor Herbert Grander agreed and said that the refugees were well integrated in the community and there had never been problems before. He told ORF Tirol that he knew nothing about rumours of a riot at the centre.

Grundböck denied that Bürglkopf was lacking necessary equipment. He said the residents had access to a shuttle bus to get into Fieberbrunn and that they would be given counselling and extra security.

Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner told journalists on Friday that it was absolutely wrong to subject people who have fled war and persecution to fear and terror. She warned that certain people were trying to throw “jihadists and asylum seekers in the same pot”, when the refugees had fled jihadists themselves.

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FAR-RIGHT

Germany issues entry ban to Austrian far-right activist Sellner

Radical Austrian nationalist Martin Sellner has been banned from entering Germany, it emerged on Tuesday, days after he was deported from Switzerland.

Germany issues entry ban to Austrian far-right activist Sellner

Sellner, a leader of Austria’s white pride Identitarian Movement, posted a video of himself on X, formerly Twitter, reading out a letter he said was from the city of Potsdam.

A spokeswoman for the city authorities confirmed to AFP that an EU citizen had been served with a “ban on their freedom of movement in Germany”.

The person can no longer enter or stay in Germany “with immediate effect” and could be stopped by police or deported if they try to enter the country, the spokeswoman said, declining to name the individual for privacy reasons.

READ ALSO: Who is Austria’s far-right figurehead banned across Europe?

“We have to show that the state is not powerless and will use its legitimate means,” Mike Schubert, the mayor of Potsdam, said in a statement.

Sellner caused an uproar in Germany after allegedly discussing the Identitarian concept of “remigration” with members of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) at a meeting in Potsdam in November.

Reports of the meeting sparked a huge wave of protests against the AfD, with tens of thousands of Germans attending demonstrations across the country.

READ ALSO:

Swiss police said Sunday they had prevented a hundred-strong far-right gathering due to be addressed by Sellner, adding that he had been arrested and deported.

The Saturday meeting had been 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.

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