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CRIME

Migrant beaten in racist attack in northeast German city

A migrant was subjected to xenophobic insults and beaten up in the northern German city of Wismar Wednesday evening, police said, in an attack that comes as the country is shaken by far-right demonstrations against foreigners.

Migrant beaten in racist attack in northeast German city
Wismar's old town. Photo: DPA

The 20-year-old man, whose nationality was not specified, was walking home  when “he was stopped by three German-speaking people who insulted him in a xenophobic manner”, police said.

Two of them then hit him in the face before the third “hit him on the shoulder and ribs with an iron chain”.

The victim fell to the ground and was beaten before his attackers fled. He suffered a broken nose and bruises to his face and upper body, said police who have opened an investigation.

The attack in the Baltic coastal city comes as Germany is reeling from weekend protests by right-wing extremists in the eastern state of Saxony, long a hotspot for xenophobia.

After the fatal stabbing of a German man, 35, allegedly by a Syrian and an Iraqi, thousands of far-right protesters marched in the city of Chemnitz for two straight days, some chasing down people they believed were immigrants.

Police reported assaults by extremists against at least three foreigners on Sunday, while investigations were opened in 10 cases of the protesters performing the illegal Hitler salute.

The ugly scenes of mostly white men, many of them extremist football hooligans, hurling abuse at people they deemed to be foreigners, have deeply  alarmed Germany.

Saxony has been a stronghold of far-right parties and groups that bitterly oppose Chancellor Angela Merkel for her 2015 decision to keep open German borders to a mass influx of migrants and refugees.

SEE ALSO: Hooligans 'attack migrants' in Chemnitz after stabbing at city festival 

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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.

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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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