This Monday, German justice has endorsed the German secret services so that they can continue to monitor the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) as suspected of extremism and continue to inform society accordingly.
After seven days of oral hearings, the Higher Administrative Court (OVG) of Münster in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia rejected the AfD’s appeal against the Office’s classification of the party as suspected of right-wing extremism. Federal Protection of the Constitution (BfV), the German intelligence services for the interior of the country. Consequently, the BfV is authorized to continue using intelligence services resources, such as employing undercover agents or recruiting informants from within the party environment, but also, in exceptional cases and under strict conditions, monitoring the telecommunications of specific individuals.
This is the step prior to being declared an extreme right party. Although the decision to outlaw it or not corresponds exclusively to the Constitutional Court, its investigations may be relevant in the future.
For Judge Gerald Buck, president of the court, the defense of democracy cannot be “a toothless tiger.” “She must be attentive and assertive, but she only bites when necessary and does not allow herself to be provoked too quickly,” he declared in his sentencing. The court explained that the BfV had ensured proportionality in its measures and that the procedure was compatible with the German Constitution, European and international law. Likewise, he stated that AfD “pursues goals that go against the human dignity of certain groups of people and against the democratic principle” and that this vigilance is necessary.
The Minister of the Interior, the social democrat Nancy Faeser, applauded the ruling, which shows that the rule of law has “instruments that protect democracy from internal threats.” “The BfV has a legal mandate to act against extremism and protect our democracy,” she wrote on the social network X.
The decision of the Münster court confirmed a previous ruling handed down by the Cologne Administrative Court in 2022 in which it upheld the BfV’s decision to classify the party and its youth organization Junge Alternative (JA) as a suspected far-right organization from 2021. However, the sentence is not yet final. The AfD can still appeal to the Federal Administrative Court, but this would only carry out a purely legal review. One of the decisive factors in the trial was the question of whether the party represents an ethnically homogeneous conception of the people contrary to the German Constitution. To defend itself, the party called three witnesses to testify, members of migrant origin, who declared that they felt safe and comfortable in the party.
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Contempt for foreigners and Muslims
However, at the very least, the court sees a well-founded suspicion that significant parts of the party pursue the political objective of recognizing only “German citizens of migrant origin a legally devalued status.” According to the court, it is not unconstitutional to use an “ethnic-cultural concept of people” on its own, but it is unconstitutional to link it to a political objective that questions the legal equality of all citizens. Furthermore, there are “sufficient indications to suspect that the AfD pursues goals associated with contempt for the human dignity of foreigners and Muslims.”
The court had already certified in the first instance that the BfV’s evaluation was based on an “irreproachable overview.” Now, the secret services presented new files with more than 2,000 pages and video materials to document that the number of clues had not decreased since the AfD was included in the “observation” category.
As Judge Buck explained, the observation of suspicious cases by German intelligence is as if the police stood in front of a closed apartment door behind which a fire alarm sounds. If in doubt, they are allowed to enter the apartment to check if there really is a fire. The BfV is also authorized to monitor the AfD on the basis of sufficient suspicion to determine whether it really is “definitely extremist,” he said.
The party, which the latest survey by the public broadcaster ZDF places as the second force in voting intention throughout the country, behind the Christian Democrats of the CDU/CSU, made an effort to delay the court’s decision as much as possible. AfD parliamentary group vice president Beatrix von Storch criticized the ruling as “a simulation of the rule of law.”
AfD now fears that the secret services will present a new report according to which the formation could be classified as extreme right, not just suspicious, which could further isolate it politically in the face of the upcoming regional elections in September in the eastern states of Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg. According to the polls, the AfD would emerge as the first political force in those three state.
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