Germany’s spy agency ranked on Friday the Alternative Party for Extreme Law Germany (AFD) as an “extremist”, allowing him to intensify the monitoring of the country’s largest opposition party, which criticized the measure as a “blow against democracy”.
A 1,100 -page report prepared by experts concluded that AFD is a racist and anti -mirror organization, a conclusion that grants security services to recruit informants and intercept party communications.
“The central point of our assessment is the ethnic and ancestral concept of people who shape AFD, which devalues whole segments of the population in Germany and violates its human dignity,” BFV domestic intelligence agency in a statement said.
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“This concept is reflected in the party’s antimigranant and antimigrant posture,” he said, adding that AFD had aroused “irrational fears and hostility” in relation to individuals and groups.
BFV agency needs this classification to be able to monitor a political party because it is more legally limited than other European intelligence services, a reflection of Germany’s experience under the Nazi and communist regime.
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The agency was able to act after the AFD last year lost a lawsuit in which it had contested its previous classification by the BFV as a suspicious entity of extremism.
AFD criticized Friday’s decision as a politically motivated attempt to discredit it and criminalize it.
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“AFD will continue to take legal measures against these defamatory attacks that endanger democracy,” collides Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla said in a statement.
The decision may endanger the public funding of AFD, while civil servants who belong to an organization classified as an “extremist” can be dismissed, depending on its function within the entity, according to the German Ministry of Interior.
The stigma could also impair AFD’s ability, which currently leads various research and is Germany’s most successful far-right party since World War II of attracting members.
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(By Sarah Marsh and Friederike Heine)
