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IMMIGRATION

Austria takes tougher stance on migrants

Austria's interior minister signalled a tougher line on migrants on Friday, saying that from next weekend it will follow Germany's lead and turn back any new arrivals seeking to claim asylum in Scandinavia.

Austria takes tougher stance on migrants
Hundreds of thousands of migrants crossed the Slovenian border last year. File photo: APA

“Right now on the Austrian-German border only those seeking asylum in Germany are being allowed in. Those who want to go further are being turned back,” Johanna Mikl-Leitner said on public radio Oe1.

“We will stop those people directly at our southern border (with Slovenia) from the end of next week,” Mikl-Leitner said.

She also said she wants to set a limit on the number of people to be settled in Austria and introduce other steps which would make it less attractive for those seeking asylum.

Caritas President Michael Landau said he believes that turning refugees away at the border would violate people's human rights

Last year Austria became a major transit country for hundreds of thousands of migrants and refugees entering the European Union, with most travelling onwards to reach Germany or Sweden.

But last week Sweden tightened border controls, prompting Denmark to follow suit and Berlin to send back to Austria anyone not seeking asylum in Germany at a rate of 200 to 300 per day, according to Mikl-Leitner.

Austria has already refused entry to 2,568 people entering from Slovenia since late December, according to the Slovenian authorities, because of problems with their identity papers.

German weekly Spiegel reported on its online version this week that Vienna was in talks with Croatia and Slovenia about sending Austrian police to help turn back migrants at their borders.

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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