American white nationalist Richard Spencer banned from 26 European countries

Spencer
Richard Spencer, the white nationalist, photographed in December

One of America's most infamous white nationalists has been banned from 26 European countries.

Richard Spencer was banned from entering the visa-free Schengen area for five years, according  to Poland's state-run news agency PAP. The news agency cited unnamed sources close to Poland's Foreign Ministry.

Mr Spencer, who famously led chants of "Hail Trump" and Nazi salutes at a Washington DC rally last year, previously was banned from the Schengen zone for three years after his 2014 arrest in Hungary, where he had planned to host a conference.

He told the Associated Press he would try to contest a new ban.

"I'm being treated like a criminal by the Polish government. It's just insane," he said. "I haven't done anything. What are they accusing me of?"

Mr Spencer popularized the term "alt-right" to describe a fringe movement that's a loose mix of racist, anti-Semitic and anti-immigration beliefs.

Spencer
White nationalists carry torches on the grounds of the University of Virginia, on the eve of a planned Unite The Right rally in Charlottesville on August 11

In August, he was scheduled to speak at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where a car plowed into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing a woman.

Mr Spencer said he had cancelled plans to travel to Poland for a far-right conference in Warsaw earlier this month after seeing reports the government was threatening to keep him out of the country.

"It just didn't feel like it was worth it," he said.

Last month, Witold Waszczykowski, the Polish foreign minister, described Mr Spencer as someone "who defames what happened during World War II, defames the Holocaust."

"He should not appear publicly, and especially not in Poland," he said.

Besides Poland, the 26 Schengen countries also include France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Sweden.

License this content