The far-right party "Alternative for Germany" can be monitored by intelligence services in the central state of Hesse as an organization suspected of right-wing extremism, a German court ruled today, DPA reported, quoted by BTA.
The Hesse Administrative Court, based in the city of Kassel, upheld a 2023 decision that accepted the categorization of the AfD branch in Hesse as a group suspected of extremism. The Hesse intelligence service decided to start monitoring the party's branch in the state in 2022, saying it suspected it of spreading an ideology that was against the free and democratic constitutional order.
Formed in 2013, the AfD is Germany's largest opposition party and won more than 20 percent of the vote in the last election in February. The party is under investigation nationally and in several of Germany's 16 states. Some of its branches have been classified as "confirmed" extremist organizations – a term that gives the intelligence services the right to use additional methods to monitor the group.
The court found evidence of AfD statements that were "directed against the human dignity of foreigners, in particular asylum seekers."
The decision can no longer be challenged in administrative courts, although the AfD could still appeal the decision to the constitutional court.
The ruling came three weeks after Hesse's interior minister, Roman Posek, criticized the lengthy procedure for classifying the AfD's intelligence.