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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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
In Thuringia, the anti-immigrant AfD has been classified as right-wing extremist and is being monitored by the domestic intelligence service.<\/p>\n
The party’s leader in Thuringia, Bj\u00f6rn H\u00f6cke, 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.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
Specifically, the case concerned three passages in the report in which posts by the co-spokesmen for the AfD in Thuringia, H\u00f6cke and Stefan M\u00f6ller, were, from their perspective, distorted.<\/p>\n
The report listed the statements under “Islamophobia: Violations of Human Dignity,” “Attacks on the Rule of Law,” and “Historical Revisionism.”<\/p>\n
The presiding judge affirmed that the quotes were accurately reproduced and their interpretation remained within the acceptable boundaries.<\/p>\n
H\u00f6cke 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.<\/p>\n
M\u00f6ller said that he did not intend to accept the decision: “We are going to the next level.”<\/p>\n
This means that the legal battle could continue before the Thuringian Higher Administrative Court.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n