AThere are considerations in the ranks of the traffic lights about cutting state funding for the AfD. The parliamentary managing director of the SPD parliamentary group, Johannes Fechner, told the “Handelsblatt” that the procedure for exclusion from party financing anchored in the Basic Law was “an important element of the state’s ability to significantly reduce state resources for anti-constitutional parties.”
The parliamentary director of the Greens, Irene Mihalic, told the newspaper that such a procedure would also be “very prerequisite”. “Just as with a party ban, the constitutional bodies are required to carefully weigh legal steps, taking into account the assessment of the security authorities,” said Mihalic. The parliamentary managing director of the Union faction, the CDU politician Thorsten Frei, in turn told the “Handelsblatt” that the traffic light should “carefully consider whether its mind games are playing into the hands of the AfD and contributing to further mobilization of the extremists”. The withdrawal of state funding also requires the AfD to be classified as unconstitutional. Frei warned that the AfD could present itself as a victim in such a process.
Previously, on Sunday evening, CDU chairman Friedrich Merz, after the Chancellor and Federal President, once again praised the rallies against right-wing extremists. He said on ARD that the demonstrators had sent an “extremely encouraging signal” “for the preservation of our democracy, our constitutional state and our freedom.”
Merz against “Nazi club”
Merz further said that, unlike the North Rhine-Westphalia Prime Minister and CDU politician Hendrik Wüst, he did not want to speak of a “Nazi party” in relation to the AfD. Although there are “real National Socialists” there, not all of the party’s voters are Nazis. “And if we want to win them back for the democratic parties in our country, then we mustn’t insult them.” It’s about solving the problems in the country, the “Nazi club doesn’t get us anywhere,” said Merz.
Meanwhile, the Thuringian state chairman of the AfD, Björn Höcke, tried at the weekend to sow doubts about the crowds at the recent demonstrations against right-wing extremism. Höcke wrote on Platform X that “ordered masses demonstrated against the AfD”. He accused ZDF of having distributed a manipulated image of the demonstration in Hamburg on Friday. Höcke suggested that demonstrators could be seen “in the Alster” through “image manipulation”. In fact, the image was photographed in such a way that demonstrators on the Reesendamm Bridge obscure the Kleine Alster behind them. The German Press Agency, from which the photo distributed by ZDF came, contradicted Höcke's depiction on X and emphasized that “of course” the image had not been manipulated.
The demonstration in Hamburg was canceled on Friday evening. The police said there were more than 50,000 demonstrators, the organizers assumed there were significantly more participants. This difference is not uncommon at demonstrations. In numerous other cities, organizers also reported higher numbers of participants at the weekend than the police. However, in many places the number of participants determined by the authorities significantly exceeded the estimated numbers when registering for demonstrations. The rally had to be canceled not only in Hamburg but also in Munich because, among other things, escape routes were no longer free due to the high number of people.
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