Bavarian Office for the Protection of the Constitution may monitor AfD
For the third time, the Bavarian AfD has failed in court to prevent the observation by the Constitutional Protection Agency (Verfassungsschutz). For two years, the party has managed to postpone the use of certain intelligence agency methods.
The Bavarian Constitutional Protection Agency is allowed to treat the AfD as a right-wing extremist suspect case. This was decided by the Administrative Court of Munich. The party's appeal against the observation was dismissed as unfounded. In the urgent matter, the party had already lost in two instances before.
At the beginning of the hearing, AfD state chairman Stephan Protschka announced that he expected no success from the lawsuit before the Administrative Court and announced that the party would call further instances in case of rejection.
The Bavarian Constitutional Protection Agency announced in 2022 that it would also observe the party with intelligence agency methods and make the results public. However, according to statements from the Constitutional Protection Agency, the use of undercover agents or intercepting communications has so far been avoided until a final judicial clarification.
From publicly accessible sources, the Constitutional Protection Agency has collected thousands of pages - including chat protocols and speech excerpts - which allegedly prove the anti-constitutional orientation of the AfD and justify the observation. The spectrum ranges from anti-foreigner and anti-Muslim statements to democratically hostile statements from AfD members and functionaries of the party.
The AfD website attempted to present the statements as outbursts of Individuals, with whom the party as a whole had nothing to do. The party had dealt with the offenses as an organization, expelling or disciplining some party members.
The AfD's continuous legal battles over the protection of its constitution and democracy have not yielded favorable results, with the party's opposition to intelligence agency methods being consistently dismissed as unfounded. Regardless of these setbacks, the party's stance on issues like the protection of the constitution and their criticism towards Muslims, such as anti-Muslim statements, remain prominent in their public discourse.
