Young alternative
Court: AfD youth secured extremist aspirations
The AfD’s offspring: the Young Alternative. photo
© dpa
The Junge Alternative, the youth organization of the AfD, is no longer just a suspected case for the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. After a court order, a new classification and treatment is legal.
The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) may monitor the youth organization Classify AfD as a confirmed extremist effort. The Cologne Administrative Court published a corresponding decision dated February 5th. The decision is not yet legally binding. The AfD and its youth organization can lodge a complaint against this with the North Rhine-Westphalia Higher Administrative Court (Az: 13 L 1124/23).
The Office for the Protection of the Constitution had previously classified the youth organization as a suspected case. A lawsuit against this decision was rejected by the Cologne Administrative Court. The Higher Administrative Court (OVG) will deal with this question in the next instance in mid-March. In April 2023, the BfV announced that the observation of suspected cases had revealed indications that the AfD youth organization Junge Alternative (JA) had gathered evidence of efforts against the free democratic basic order. Therefore, the Junge Alternative is classified and treated as a confirmed right-wing extremist effort. The AfD and the youth organization filed a lawsuit against this in June 2023 and granted an urgent application against the classification. The Cologne Administrative Court rejected the urgent application.
From the point of view of Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD), the fact that the administrative court confirmed the JA as right-wing extremist shows that the instruments of the rule of law to protect democracy work. “Today’s decision clearly states that we are dealing with massive contempt for humanity, with racism, with hatred against Muslims and with attacks on our democracy,” said the minister on Tuesday, according to her ministry. “We will continue to take action against this using the means of the rule of law,” she added.
Reasons for the decision: JA represents the ethnic concept of the people
In the justification for rejecting the urgent application, the administrative court writes that the Federal Constitutional Protection Act applies to the applicants. The observation by the BfV does not represent a measure “that is directed against the existence of the AfD, but rather serves to clarify whether a party – or in this case its youth organization – is pursuing anti-constitutional goals,” said the administrative court. The admissibility of such information is presupposed by the constitution. In fact, the JA is definitely an extremist effort. “The actual evidence of anti-constitutional efforts has become certain since the court’s ruling of March 8, 2022, which dealt with the classification of the JA as a suspected case.”
The youth organization continues to represent a ethnic concept of ethnicity. The exclusion of “ethnic strangers” is a central idea of the correctional institution and therefore a violation of human dignity, explains the court in the 70-page reasoning for its decision. Furthermore, the Basic Law does not recognize a concept of the people that is based exclusively on ethnic categories. “In addition, there is ongoing massive anti-foreigner and anti-Islam and anti-Muslim agitation at the JA. Asylum seekers and migrants are generally suspected and degraded. Immigrants are generally described as parasites and criminals or are viewed with contempt in other ways and their human dignity is therefore disregarded.” , writes the administrative court.
The JA acts against the principles of democracy at all political levels. The Federal Republic of Germany is equated with dictatorial regimes, “particularly the Nazi regime and the GDR.” The youth organization’s connections with organizations classified as anti-constitutional, such as the Identitarian Movement, would also reinforce the suspicions.
On March 12th and 13th, the NRW-OVG, based in Münster, will negotiate on AfD matters. The subject is the classification of the so-called AfD wing, which has since been dissolved, as a suspected case and as a confirmed extremist endeavor as well as the classification of the Junge Alternative as a suspected case and the classification of the AfD as a suspected right-wing extremist case. The current decision from Cologne on the Young Alternative is not yet on the administrative judges’ agenda. North Rhine-Westphalia is responsible because the Federal Office has its headquarters in Cologne.