SHARE
COPY LINK

IMMIGRATION

Police to deploy 300 officers at Austrian border protest

Italian police are planning to deploy 300 officers at pro-refugee protest taking place this weekend at the Brenner border with Austria.

Police to deploy 300 officers at Austrian border protest
JAN HETFLEISCH/EPA

The number of officers being deployed is three times as many who were there at the previous Brenner border protest that took place earlier in April.

On that occasion the initially peaceful protest by several hundred pro-refugee demonstrators from Italy, Austria and Germany ended in violence after 50 participants attacked police, resulting in five Austrian officers being injured.

The demonstrators were protesting against Austria’s preparations to tighten border controls at Brenner and the construction of a barrier across the road and motorway to prevent migrants and refugees from entering Austria unchecked.

The move is part of a greater effort from Austria to reduce the number of migrants and refugees claiming asylum in the country by increasing border checks and tightening control. Following the closure of the west Balkan route in recent months, Austrian authorities say they expect large numbers of people to make their way via Italy to seek protection and a better life in central Europe.

Following talks with the organisers in recent days, police from the South Tyrol city of Bolzano said in a press release on Wednesday that they do not expect Sunday’s protest to turn violent as it did before.

Meanwhile Austria’s Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner, who has led the country’s hardline approach to migration, defended the right of the demonstrators to protest against the measures at Brenner.

Mikl-Leitner made the remarks on Tuesday after politicians from Austria’s Tyrol and Italy’s South Tyrol region questioned whether Sunday’s protest should be banned because the previous one had turned violent.

“As we know, there is a right to demonstrate and that should be retained. And therefore we must intensively work together with the Italian executive,” she said.

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.

SHOW COMMENTS