extremism
The Office for the Protection of the Constitution may classify AfD as a suspected case
The Office for the Protection of the Constitution wants to continue to run the AfD as a suspected case and monitor it accordingly. Photo: Federico Gambarini/dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
The AfD wanted to prevent the court from classifying it as a suspected case. The lawsuit has now been dismissed. The AfD boss is “surprised”.
The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution may classify the AfD as a suspected case. The administrative court in Cologne decided on Tuesday evening after a hearing that lasted almost ten hours and thus dismissed a lawsuit by the AfD.
The verdict is not yet final, and an appeal can be lodged against the decision. The Higher Administrative Court in Münster would then have to decide on this.
The court explained that there were sufficient indications of anti-constitutional efforts within the party. The protection of the constitution has proven this in reports and collections of material. The AfD only countered this with blanket denial. Although the so-called wing of the party was formally dissolved, its protagonists continued to exert significant influence. The activities of the youth organization Junge Alternative (JA) were also included in the assessment. Both in the wing and in the YA, an ethnically understood concept of the people is a central political goal. According to this, the German people must be preserved in their ethnic composition and “foreigners” must be excluded as far as possible. This contradicts the concept of people in the Basic Law.
Chrupalla: surprised and disappointed
AfD boss Tino Chrupalla is surprised by the decision of the Cologne administrative court to classify his party as a suspected case. “We were surprised by the verdict of the court. We do not share the court’s view. We will now wait for the written reasons for the verdict, »he said on Tuesday evening in Cologne. Of course he was disappointed too. “Of course.”
Chrupalla announced that it would now be examined to what extent action would be taken against the verdict. He also said: “We will now go into internal audit with us.”
The AfD was successful with its lawsuit, which opposed the fact that the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution had publicly announced that the wing had 7,000 members. There is not enough evidence for that, the court said.