On Wednesday, April 19, Sellner would speak at the NSV about ‘the identitarian struggle and its future’. Sellner was part of the Austrian neo-Nazi scene as a young guy. When he was 17 years old, he stuck posters with a swastika on a synagogue. Later he became the leader of Identitären Bewegung Österreich (IBO).
He became world famous, and infamous, after the attack in Christchurch, New Zealand. After the deadly raid on two mosques, it turned out that the perpetrator had transferred a donation to Sellner and his address in Austria was searched. Sellner and the terrorist also appeared to have spoken via email.
The lecture at the NSV was to take place in the Leo XIII Pedagogical Institute, but after De Morning KU Leuven has now announced that it will no longer allow this, after consultation with the Leuven city council. Mayor Ridouani (Vooruit) says that there has been consultation, but the decision lies with KU Leuven.
“In exceptional cases, KU Leuven can and will decide in advance not to allow an event to take place,” says a university statement. “KU Leuven now decides to ban that lecture in its premises for safety reasons. have already been denied entry to the United Kingdom on those grounds.”
Sellner was indeed arrested in 2018 at a British airport, detained for two days and deported from the country, along with his current wife Brittany Pettibone. KU Leuven further emphasizes in its statement that it considers “freedom of expression to be of paramount importance”. The nationalistic student association NSV has not yet responded to De Morgen’s questions.
Sellner has only just announced that he will appear in court in Vienna on May 4, two weeks after the lecture. He has to answer for a message on Telegram.
After the German security services thwarted a potential coup d’état by alleged Reichsbürger in December, Sellner questioned the danger of that move. But above all, he wrote on Telegram: ‘The truth is that every asylum center poses more danger to our children than to ‘Reichsbürgers’. According to the public prosecutor in Austria, this would incite hatred.
Austria has been prosecuting Sellner for several years. The Lambda symbol of the identitarian movement has been banned there since 2021, like that of certain terrorist groups such as IS. Last fall, Sellner lost another case against ÖVP politician Thomas Stelzer. Sellner had claimed that the governor had “let in” a Syrian who raped a 15-year-old and was therefore a “co-rapist”. He would also organize a “repopulation” in this way.
