Gatherings or celebrations. - The Saxon AfD party files a lawsuit against the constitution protection report.
The Saxon AfD intends to legally contest their designation as a right-wing extremist organization in the existing Constitutional Protection Report. On Friday, they declared in Dresden their intention to expand an existing lawsuit at the Administrative Court.
The State Office for the Protection of the Constitution (LfV) classified the Saxon branch of the AfD as a "secured right-wing extremist tendency" back in December 2023. The party had already commenced legal action against this Label. The case is still underway. Additionally, the AfD requests the publication of an expert opinion that the Constitutional Protection Agency employs as a reference for their assessment.
AfD Chairman Jörg Urban flatly denied any extremist ideologies within his party on Friday and decried the stigmatization. He defined extremism as "overthrow fantasies and violence." He asserted that his party is "light-years away" from such activities and considered the discussion "absurd."
Urban accused the Constitutional Protection Agency of having evolved into a "speech police," while criticizing Interior Minister Armin Schuster (CDU) for using the agency to combat opposition. AfD Deputy Chairman Joachim Keiler noted that the AfD had previously appeared in previous Constitutional Protection Reports merely as a victim of left-wing violence.
In the present report, the Saxon AfD's intention to "abolish the constitution or aggressively and militantly oppose it or the Basic Law" is nowhere substantiated: "That's also not possible, because it's not the political goal of the Saxon AfD," according to the statement. They accuse the Constitutional Protection Agency of being politically exploited.
Interior Minister Schuster has recently denied any political motives while discussing the report and labeled the AfD's designation as a right-wing extremist tendency as a strictly legal matter. The LfV supported its stance in the Constitutional Protection Report by claiming that the AfD-Landesverband Saxony is seeking to enact a fundamental political paradigm shift, which the party itself refers to as a "system change."
Urban admitted that the AfD's designation as a "secured right-wing extremist tendency" in Saxony initially inspired a growth in mebership and financial contributions for the AfD. However, they are aiming for an absolute majority in the state and intend to attract voters who have not previously supported the AfD before. "We want to win CDU voters, we want to win Left voters, we want to win SPD voters." If the AfD's reputation is tarnished, though, it hinders the party's growth, according to Keiler. The classification of East German state branches as right-wing extremist has also impacted some Western branches.
