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Why did the German spy agency classify AfD, the far-right party, as "extremist"?

The German spy agency classified the far right Alternative for Germany (AfD), on Friday, as "extremist". This allowed it to intensify monitoring of the largest opposition party in the country.

The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution's (BfV) decision was based on a confidential 1,100-page report prepared by experts.

According to the security officials that have seen the report, here are some key findings and evidence:

Anti-Migrant Incitement

Officials from the parties often refer to citizens with immigrant backgrounds as "passport Germans", and use terms like "population replacement" when describing what they claim is the impact of mass migration.

Knife migrants or knifemen were sometimes used to describe migrant species.

In October 2023 the party leadership posted on social media that the Greens had a "Population Replacement General Plan", a plan which echoed "General Plan East", a Nazi label for the Nazis' plan to genocide Jews and other ethnicities in Eastern Europe during World War Two. Alice Weidel, the party co-leader in July 2023, described knife crime as being exclusive to people from "a totally alien culture" and violent cultures. It's not in our culture... It is only found in cultures of Africa and Middle East".

Hannes Gnauck, a senior party official, said on the 11th of August: "We need to be able again to decide who belongs to our nation and who does not." It's not just about a passport. We're all connected by an invisible thread that we don't need to explain.

RACISM

The youth wing of the party ran a campaign that included a song and video clip depicting Black men in an "extraordinarily racist" way.

ISLAMOPHOBIA

Weidel, in 2023, claiming that 761 mass rapes had occurred in Germany in the year prior to this one, said: "What is happening on German streets today is jihad." The German people are being targeted by a religious war.

ATTACKING GERMAN DÉMOCRACY

Tino Chrupalla, co-leader of AfD, said that the destruction of Nord Stream's gas pipelines by 2022 and the lack immediate response was proof "that this nation can't be sovereignty. It's not the way you respond when you are attacked.

He later described mainstream parties as "American vassals".

After Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the Nord Stream pipelines that brought Russian gas to Germany under the Baltic Sea were destroyed.

(source: Reuters)