Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has designated the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party a right-wing extremist group that threatens the country’s democratic order. The move hands authorities more power to monitor the party just months after it took second place in national elections.
The AfD had been under investigation by the BfV domestic intelligence agency for several years, and several local chapters of the party had already been labelled extreme right-wing.
In a statement released this week, the BfV said it had decided to classify the entire party as extremist due to repeated efforts by the AfD to “undermine the free, democratic” order in Germany.
“The party’s prevailing ethnically based concept of the people is not compatible with the free democratic basic order,” the agency said.
It added that the AfD does not see German citizens with a migrant background from Muslim-majority countries as “equal members of the German people”.
"This is evident in the large number of ongoing xenophobic, anti-minority, Islamophobic and anti-Muslim statements made by leading party officials."
The new classification gives the BfV greater powers to track the AfD’s activities, including intercepting phone calls and using undercover agents.
Germany’s Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said on Friday there had been “no political influence whatsoever” on the agency’s conclusions, which are based on a report running over 1,100 pages.
The AfD has surged in popularity in recent years by tapping into public concern over migration, especially as the country’s economy struggles with recession.
It came second in the general election in February, winning more than 20 percent of the vote, behind the centre-right CDU of Friedrich Merz, who is due to take office at the head of a coalition next week.
The party has courted controversy in recent years – senior officials have dismissed Germany's Nazi past as "a speck of bird poo" in the nation's 1,000-year history and claimed Adolf Hitler was "forced" to invade Poland.
It has also showered praise on Russia's Vladimir Putin.
Following a series of scandals last year led, France's far-right National Rally (RN) distanced itself from the AfD.
RN, which has been at pains to move away from its Nazi roots, cut official links with the AfD following comments by Maximilian Krah – one of its top candidates in last year's elections – that someone who had been a member of the SS paramilitary force in Nazi Germany was "not automatically a criminal".
(with newswires)
AFD should be banned if its a threat to democracy
Take them out. Death to all Nazis now and forever