The Office for the Protection of the Constitution is allowed to classify AfD youth as a confirmed extremist movement

DThe Office for the Protection of the Constitution is allowed to classify and treat the Junge Alternative (JA) as a confirmed extremist effort. The Cologne Administrative Court decided this on Monday, as it announced on Tuesday. In doing so, it rejected an application from the AfD and its youth organization.

In 2019, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution classified Junge Alternative as a suspected case of right-wing extremism. The Cologne Administrative Court dismissed a lawsuit against this in March 2022.

A good year later, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution announced that the observation of suspected cases had shown that the evidence of efforts against the free, democratic basic order had become certain. The JA is therefore now classified as a confirmed right-wing extremist effort. The AfD and the JA filed a lawsuit against this and at the same time filed an application for interim legal protection. The court has now rejected this.

More than 70 pages of resolution text

The court justifies its decision with an order that runs to more than 70 pages. It states, among other things, that the observation of the party's youth by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution is not directed against the existence of the AfD, but rather serves to clarify whether the party – or in this case its youth organization – is pursuing anti-constitutional goals. “The admissibility of such information is required by the constitution,” the court said. In fact, the Junge Alternative is definitely an extremist effort.

The evidence of anti-constitutional efforts has become certain since the court's ruling in March 2022. The AfD party youth continues to represent a “national concept of ethnic origin”. The preservation of the German people in their ethnic composition and, if possible, the exclusion of “ethnic foreigners” is a central political idea of ​​the JA. This represents a violation of human dignity.

AfD and Junge Alternative can lodge a complaint against the decision. The Higher Administrative Court for the state of North Rhine-Westphalia in Münster would then decide on this.