The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) of Germany has designated Junge Alternative (JA), the youth branch of the right-wing Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party, as an extremist organisation, according to a news statement issued on Wednesday.
According to Die Welt, the designation means that JA members can be targeted using all intelligence measures accessible to the BfV, including covert surveillance, confidential informants, and phone tapping. The extremist label will also make it more difficult to obtain government employment or firearms licences. Since January 2019, the BfV has been monitoring the organisation as a “suspected case” of extremism.
The BfV noted that the JA’s image of Germany as a nation of Germans treating other nationalities and migrants as second-class people is incompatible with the nation’s Basic Law.
The JA supports a “nation that is as ethnoculturally homogeneous as possible, excludes migrants of non-European origin as fundamentally impossible to integrate, and sees the greatest danger in a supposedly controlled population exchange to destroy the ‘organically grown European peoples,’” according to the BfV.
“In particular, immigrants with a (supposed) Muslim background are attributed negative characteristics in a sweeping manner, such as cultural backwardness and a disproportionately strong tendency to crime and violence, simply because of their origin and religion,” the agency stated. According to the JA, members not only target political opponents but also discredit Germany’s democratic system.
The JA is apparently considering its legal options, while the group said it was not surprised by the extremist label or the intelligence agencies’ desire to silence dissent.
“Whether they are critics of migration, critics of coronavirus measures, or advocates of peace – every form of genuine opposition in this country is systematically stigmatised by this authority,” the JA’s board stated.
While the AfD has seats in 15 of 16 state legislatures and 15-17% of the electorate’s support, the party has been illegally barred from the two main public news channels and was labelled a suspected threat to democracy in March.
If the AfD is labelled as radical, as its young branch is, some in the party believe it will be banned.
