Germany’s spy agency BfV has labeled the entirety of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party as an extremist entity.
The BfV domestic intelligence agency, which is in charge of safeguarding Germany’s constitutional order, said the announcement comes after an “intense and comprehensive” examination.
“The ethnicity-and ancestry-based conception of the people that predominates within the party is not compatible with the free democratic order,” the BfV said on Friday.
Hopefully this inspires the other parties to to start the process to see the AfD banned. I know the report might not look like much, because of how obvious the findings are. But previous attempts at banning them have failed because such an official report was missing. So maybe our political system starts getting its shit together.
As we say in Germany: Hope dies last
While you can argue that Individuals in the AfD are antidemocratic, I honestly do not see evidence for that on the general party level.
I read their program. Weird? Yes. Antidemocratic? No.
The Bundesverfassungsschutz has released a 1000 page report detailing their investigation and assessment. I find it unsurprising that the AfDs advertising material for an election hides their anti democratic aspects.
Look I am all for marking extremist, but it really matters on what grounds. And it matters how it is done.
Why is the report Not public? Does Not make any sense.
Why has the report not undergone internal audits as it would be standard procedure? Seems odd at least.
Its really all about „Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence“ - and no it does not matter if you personally think „it is obvious“.
Based on what I have read, hence based on what is known about the content of the report, there is no good evidence (but I could be wrong). Also no legal implications follow from this report, and based on what is known about Nancy Faeser involvment I can not deny a certain „Geschmäckle“ which is undermining the original purpose.
If you wanna do these things, they need to be done with undeniable evidence and transparency.
The report was intended for publication at a later date specifically because it had not passed the full review process yet. That’s why it’s not public. A news magazine with a reputation for investigative reporting (think German NYT but a bit more conservative leaning) has gotten their hands on at least part of the report and chose to write about it.
That is why the report is not public (yet), because it is still undergoing the internal audits you are asking for.
Yes it matters how it’s done. And they are trying to do it right. How the report got to the magazine and the motives of potential leakers are pure speculation at this point.
From what I have read (hence from what is known) it’s a 1000 page document compiled by an organisation that has had it in the past trouble when it came to persecuting right wing extremism (they covered up their involvement with a right wing terror group and a former head of the BfV was kicked out for passing information about the early stages of this investigation into the AfD to the AfD, to name just two recent examples).
If such a report makes it through such an organisation I expect it to hold more than just hear say and speculation.
That is not entirely correct. If the BfV internally accepts the report as factual it can use a wider array of tools to observe and investigate the AfD. It’s content could (again, after the review process has been completed) be published and used as evidence for administrative and legal proceedings of whatever nature. (eg a prospective teacher was prohibited from joining the Bavarian education system because of her left wing extremist political views. If the AfD is classified as a right wing extremist organisation the same could happen to AfD members).