Germany’s domestic intelligence agency last week classified the largest opposition party, the AfD, as “confirmed right-wing extremist.” This has intensified debates over whether or not to ban the party.
On Friday, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) was classified as “confirmed right-wing extremist” by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV).
Now, there has been a first fallout: two AfD politicians and parliamentarians are not allowed to accompany Hesse’s Minister for European affairs, Manfred Pentz, on a trip to Serbia and Croatia. Pentz explained that he could not expect international partners “to sit down at the same table with representatives of a party that has been confirmed as right-wing extremist.”
Further measures also threaten the radical right-wing party: several federal states want to examine whether being a civil servant, including judges, police officers, teachers, or soldiers, is still compatible with being a member of the AfD.
I’m not defining anything. Fascism is an already well defined term with very clear criteria, such as being opposed to democracy and replacing it with an authoratarian, one-party state. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism
In Germany there is a special, independent court, at a similar level to the US supreme court but without the ability for parties to appoint the judges like they can in the US, that reveiws hard evidence and determines whether a political party can be proven to be actively trying to break the constitution (including the part that makes Germany a democracy, for example). So it’s not left up to someone’s opinion, nor can one party simply label another as fascist to ban them (like Hitler did)