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REFUGEE CRISIS

IMMIGRATION

Austria sees 79 percent jump in asylum claims

Applications for refugee status from asylum seekers increased by 79 percent in Austria in the second quarter of 2015, figures released by the Brussels statistics authority showed on Friday.

Austria sees 79 percent jump in asylum claims
Refugees at Vienna's Westbahnhof station. Photo: Kim Traill

The highest number of asylum seekers applied for refugee status in Germany – where authorities received 80,900 applications of the 213,200 made across the EU between April and June according to Eurostat data.

Austrian authorities received 17,400 applications – a huge increase compared to the first quarter of 2015. However, the highest jump in the number of applications was in the Netherlands – an increase of 159 percent.

Hungary was the European state with the largest number of asylum seekers relative to its population, at 3,317 per million inhabitants.

That was streets ahead of Austria at 2,026, Sweden at 1,467 and Germany at 997 per million.

44,000 Syrians applied for asylum in the EU in second quarter of 2015 – the majority registering in Germany (16,300), Hungary (8,400), Austria (5,300) and Sweden (3,900). Afghans were the second largest group to seek asylum in the EU between April and June.

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.

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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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