In a jolt to Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, the country’s domestic intelligence agency has designated it as an ‘extremist organisation’.
AfD had garnered 20.8% of the vote in Germany’s federal election in February, the highest vote share in the party’s history, and was the second best performer.

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Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the country’s domestic intelligence agency, issued an update on its investigation into the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), classifying it as a “confirmed right-wing extremist organisation.”
Earlier, only the AfD’s state associations in certain parts of Germany were classified as such, but the national party was given a lower, “suspected” status.

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Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV), responsible for safeguarding Germany’s constitutional order, said the announcement comes after an “intense and comprehensive” examination.

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“The ethnicity-and ancestry-based conception of the people that predominates within the party is not compatible with the free democratic order,” the BfV said on Friday.
“It aims to exclude certain population groups from equal participation in society, to subject them to treatment that violates the constitution, and thereby assign them a legally subordinate status.”

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“The ethnicity- and ancestry-based conception of the people that predominates within the party is not compatible with the free democratic order,” said a Reuters report quoting BfV statement.
“It aims to exclude certain population groups from equal participation in society, to subject them to treatment that violates the constitution, and thereby assign them a legally subordinate status,” it added.

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The AfD does not consider German citizens of immigrant background from predominantly Muslim countries as equal members of the German people, it added.

AfD treats citizens with foreign roots as ‘second-class Germans’: Faeser

The outgoing Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said that AfD was running a campaign against democratic order.
“The AfD represents an ethnic concept that discriminates against entire population groups and treats citizens with a history of migration as second-class Germans,” Faeser said in a statement on Friday. 
“Their ethnic attitude is reflected in racist statements, especially against immigrants and Muslims,” she added.
There was “no political influence whatsoever” in the findings of the BfV agency based on a 1,100-page report, Faeser added.

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The assessment is likely to reignite the debate about banning the AfD, though it is not an automatic process and requires the Bundestag, the Bundesrat or the government to initiate it by applying to the federal constitutional court.

Possible ban proceedings must not be rushed, warns Scholz

The outgoing chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Friday that though BfV has provided a detailed justification for classifying the far-right Alternative for Germany as extremist but possible proceedings to ban the party must not be rushed. 
“I am against a quick shot, we have to evaluate the classification carefully,” he said at a church convention in Hanover.

Support for AFD rising since February election

The AfD repeatedly courted controversies with its senior officials dismissing Germany’s Nazi era as “bird shit” in the nation’s history, and even claiming that Adolf Hitler was “forced” to invade Poland.
Ahead of the parliamentary election in February this year, US billionaire Elon Musk endorsed the party, saying it was the only party that “can save” Germany.
 

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The populist party secured 20.8% of the votes in the February election, finishing second behind incoming Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s CDU/CSU bloc, which had 28.6% of the vote, but recent polls indicate it is closing the gap with the conservatives, and one poll published last week even put it ahead of CDU/CSU.

‘Severe blow to German democracy’: AfD

AfD co-leaders Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla said they would take legal action against the BfV’s classification of the party as extremist, and termed the decision a “severe blow to German democracy”.

“The AfD is being publicly discredited and criminalised shortly before change of government,” they said.

“It is sad to see the state of democracy in our country when the old parties are now even using the most politically questionable means against the strongest opposition party,” said Anton Baron, an AfD lawmaker