Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has designated the Alternative for Germany, the country's second-largest political party, as a right-wing extremist group, a controversial step that could lead to the organization being banned altogether.
The agency said its months-long investigation confirmed suspicions that the party was undermining the country’s free democratic basic order.
The move – which comes after a French court effectively barred Marine Le Pen from running for president in 2027 and the recent annulment of Romania's presidential election after a far-right candidate won the first round – is sure to fuel conspiracy theories across Europe that the political establishment will stop at nothing to keep the far right from gaining power.
In Germany, which has particularly strict rules concerning the banning of political parties, the move by the domestic intelligence, known as the Verfassungschutz (Office for the Protection of the Constitution), marks a watershed.
European countries are turning into totalitarian regimes led by unpopular politicians and parties, speaker of the Russian State Duma, or lower house of parliament, Vyacheslav Volodin said, commenting on the designation of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party as "right-wing extremist."
"Today, popular politicians in Germany, France, Romania, and Moldova are prosecuted, and parties are banned. European countries are turning into totalitarian regimes led by unpopular politicians and parties," he wrote on his Telegram channel, adding that what is happening there can be described as a "collapse of democracy in Europe."
"As soon as the leader of France’s National Rally party, Marine Le Pen, became the most popular politician having outstripped incumbent President [Emmanuel] Macron in ratings, she was deprived of electoral rights for five years and brought to criminal responsibility," he noted.
He also pointed to the annulment of the November 2024 election in Romania, which were won by opposition politician Calin Georgescu, who was barred from taking part in a new election. Apart from that, Evghenia Gutsul, the head of Moldova’s Gagauz autonomy, who refused to support the Moldovan authorities’ course toward European integration, was arrested ahead of parliamentary elections, he recalled.
"The political system based on democratic principles, such as competition, free expression of people’s will, rights and freedoms, has become a thing of the past," he emphasized.
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L'agence allemande de renseignement intérieur a déclaré vendredi qu'elle avait désigné le parti Alternative pour l'Allemagne (AfD) comme une organisation d'extrême droite confirmée. L'agence, appelée Office fédéral pour la protection de la Constitution (BfV), a déclaré qu'il existait désormais des preuves concrètes que le parti anti-immigrés fondé en 2013 poursuit des efforts qui menacent l'ordre démocratique de l'Allemagne.
ReplyDelete"La conception dominante de la population fondée sur l'ethnicité et l'ascendance est incompatible avec l'ordre démocratique libre", a déclaré l'Office. Les déclarations et les positions du parti et des principaux représentants de l'AfD nient le principe constitutionnel de l'inviolabilité de la dignité humaine, poursuit l'agence fédérale.
L'AfD, qui s'est hissé à la deuxième place lors des élections générales de l'année dernière, était auparavant considéré comme "soupçonné" d'extrémisme par l'agence. Le parti a contesté en vain cette désignation devant les tribunaux.
In einer ersten Reaktion auf die Erklärung des Bundesamtes für Verfassungsschutz ließ das Führungsduo der AfD, Tino Chrupalla und Alice Weidel, mitteilen, dass man sich gegen die Diffamierungen weiter juristisch zur Wehr setzen werde.
ReplyDeleteAm 2. Mai erfolgte durch die geschäftsführende SPD-Innenministerin Faeser die Einstufung der AfD als "gesichert rechtsextrem". Katja Mast, die Parlamentarische Geschäftsführerin der SPD-Fraktion, fordert nun umgehende "Antworten". Noch-Bundeskanzler Olaf Scholz warnt vor einem voreiligen Verbotsverfahren.
ReplyDeleteUS Secretary of State Marco Rubio has slammed the German counterintelligence agency’s decision to designate the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party as a right-wing extremist entity as non-democratic.
ReplyDelete"Germany just gave its spy agency new powers to surveil the opposition. That’s not democracy - it’s tyranny in disguise," he wrote on his X page. "What is truly extremist is not the popular AfD - which took second in the recent election - but rather the establishment’s deadly open border immigration policies that the AfD opposes."
"Germany should reverse course," he stated.
Germany's Foreign Office has defended a decision to classify the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party as right-wing extremist, after sharp criticism from the White House.
ReplyDeleteUS Vice-President JD Vance accused "bureaucrats" of rebuilding the Berlin Wall, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio slammed the designation as "tyranny in disguise".
In an unusual move, the foreign office directly replied to Rubio on X, writing: "We have learnt from our history that right-wing extremism needs to be stopped."
The intelligence agency that made the classification found AfD's "prevailing understanding of people based on ethnicity and descent" goes against Germany's "free democratic order".
Secretary of State Marco Rubio condemned a decision Friday by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency to classify the political party Alternative for Germany (AfD) as a right-wing extremist organization, calling the move “tyranny in disguise.”
ReplyDelete“What is truly extremist is not the popular AfD—which took second in the recent election—but rather the establishment’s deadly open border immigration policies that the AfD opposes,” Rubio wrote in a post on X in the hours following the decision.