A German court dismissed on Tuesday a lawsuit filed by the Thuringian branch of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) against three passages in a 2021 domestic intelligence report.
The judgement comes ahead of key regional elections that will be held on Sunday in the eastern states of Thuringia and Saxony. Polls suggest the AfD could win the elections.
In Thuringia, the anti-immigrant AfD has been classified as right-wing extremist and is being monitored by the domestic intelligence service.
The party’s leader in Thuringia, Björn Höcke, is well-known in the country for controversial remarks and has twice been convicted in court for knowingly using a banned Nazi slogan in speeches.
Weimar Administrative Court on Tuesday ruled that party’s lawsuit against the 2021 report was unfounded, saying that the public interest outweighed the stigma associated with the publication for the AfD
Specifically, the case concerned three passages in the report in which posts by the co-spokesmen for the AfD in Thuringia, Höcke and Stefan Möller, were, from their perspective, distorted.
The report listed the statements under “Islamophobia: Violations of Human Dignity,” “Attacks on the Rule of Law,” and “Historical Revisionism.”
The presiding judge affirmed that the quotes were accurately reproduced and their interpretation remained within the acceptable boundaries.
Höcke is the lead candidate for the AfD in upcoming state regional elections in Thuringia, where the party has been polling at about 30% for weeks, well ahead of other parties.
Möller said that he did not intend to accept the decision: “We are going to the next level.”
This means that the legal battle could continue before the Thuringian Higher Administrative Court.