Awith faces the development of the AfD Head of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Thomas Haldenwang, observes the popularity of the party with concern and considers it a task for society as a whole to oppose it. The Office for the Protection of the Constitution is not responsible for lowering the AfD’s poll numbers. “But we can shake the population awake, we can shake politicians awake,” said Haldenwang on Tuesday evening in the ZDF “heute journal”.
In March 2021, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution classified the AfD as a suspected right-wing extremist. The Cologne Administrative Court confirmed this classification in March 2022. The AfD appealed. The procedure is not yet complete. The AfD chairman Tino Chrupalla rejected the accusation of extremism against his party. In nationwide surveys, the AfD was recently in second place in the party landscape.
“For good reasons, we set up the AfD as a suspected case,” said Haldenwang. “We actually see strong tendencies in the AfD that act in an anti-constitutional manner. And there it is particularly about hatred and hate speech towards minorities of all kinds, minorities, migrants, Muslims, but also people with other sexual orientations.” A völkisch-nationalistic understanding of citizenship with the idea of citizens first and second class can also be observed.
Citizens should know all of this when making their voting decision, said Haldenwang. “It is all the more important that we educate about this party and its efforts, about what the danger of this party is for our democracy, for our free basic order.” The enlightenment should also mobilize the social forces to counter this trend to ask: “The fight for our democracy must be waged in society as a whole.”
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