Status: 12/15/2022 7:56 a.m
How to continue after the raid against “Reichsbürger” – in which an ex-AfD MP was arrested? Should the party be banned, as Greens leader Lang can imagine? CDU leader Merz says: No.
After the anti-terrorist raid against “Reichsbürger”, the CDU chairman Friedrich Merz rejected an AfD ban as useless. Birgit Malsack-Winkemann, a former member of the AfD Bundestag, was among those arrested.
“I don’t think much of such ban procedures,” he told the broadcaster Welt. “They reorganize the next day and are in another party. And then the game starts all over again,” he said. What is needed is a political debate, not a legal one.
However, he could imagine a tightening of gun laws, as planned by Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD). “If it turns out that people from this scene have come into possession of guns, have come into possession of guns legally, then you really have to check that.”
Faeser wants to ban semi-automatic weapons
But that alone will not help either, said Merz. “I’m just warning us not to make the mistake of thinking that if you take these people’s guns away, their attitude has changed. That’s the real problem.”
The FDP, among others, is critical of the gun law plans. On the one hand, this involves a better exchange between the police and the weapons authorities. Faeser also wants to ban privately owned semi-automatic weapons similar to war weapons.
Greens see good reasons for an AfD ban
The Green Party leader Ricarda Lang also told the broadcaster that an AfD ban should not be taboo. “That has to be checked very carefully, because what we do see is that right-wing extremism has a parliamentary arm – and that’s the AfD.” There are good reasons for a ban on the matter: “There is a party that deeply despises this democracy – and ultimately this country as well. It is currently making itself the mouthpiece of Vladimir Putin.”
On December 7, 25 suspected “Reich citizens” were arrested. 22 of them are accused of being members of a terrorist organization that wanted to overthrow the political system. “Reich citizens” are people who do not recognize the Federal Republic and its democratic structures. Weapons were also seized during the raids.
A former AfD member of the Bundestag was also arrested during the raid on “Reichsbürger”.
Image: EPA
AfD: Have nothing to do with “these weirdos”
AfD federal spokesman Tino Chrupalla said in the program “RTL Direkt” that there were no close connections between his party and the so-called Reich citizens. The AfD has “nothing at all to do with these cranks”.
In general, it is to be welcomed that the state is cracking down on “Reich citizens”. But to speak of a state coup in the specific case, “that can no longer be said here.”
When asked how the AfD would deal with the arrested Malsack-Winkemann, he said that if the accusation were to be confirmed, the necessary consequences would be drawn. When asked if this would lead to expulsion from the party, Chrupalla said: “Absolutely.” Anyone who is committed to the Reich Citizens’ Scene has no place in the AfD.