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The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) can be monitored by intelligence authorities in the central state of Hesse as a suspected case of right-wing extremism, a court ruled on Monday.<\/p>\n
The Hessian Administrative Court, based in Kassel, upheld a 2023 ruling by a lower court that accepted the state intelligence service’s categorization of the AfD’s branch in Hesse as a suspected extremist group.<\/p>\n
The Hesse Office for the Protection of the Constitution made the decision to begin monitoring the party’s chapter in the state in 2022, arguing that it was suspected of harbouring an ideology directed against the free and democratic constitutional order.<\/p>\n
Formed in 2013, the AfD is Germany’s largest opposition group, having secured more than 20% of the vote in February’s federal parliamentary election.<\/p>\n
The anti-immigrant party is under investigation at the national level and in several of Germany’s 16 states. Some of its party branches are deemed “confirmed” extremist organizations, a term that grants intelligence services further powers to monitor the group.<\/p>\n
The court found evidence of AfD statements “directed against the human dignity of foreigners, in particular asylum seekers, as ethnic ‘strangers.'”<\/p>\n
The decision can no longer be contested in administrative courts, although the AfD could yet appeal to a constitutional court.<\/p>\n
The ruling comes three weeks after Hesse’s interior minister, Roman Poseck, criticized the lengthy procedure related to the AfD’s classification by intelligence services.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n