2024-09-04 14:26:28
In a few days there will be state elections in Thuringia. The AfD is ahead in the polls – but it has now suffered a defeat in court. One thing will remain unclear for the time being.
A few days before the Thuringian state election, the AfD regional association there failed in its lawsuit against the state’s Office for the Protection of the Constitution. The Weimar Administrative Court dismissed a lawsuit brought by the party against the 2021 Office for the Protection of the Constitution report as unfounded. The party had demanded that three passages from the report be deleted and publicly corrected. This was not about the general classification as “confirmed right-wing extremist”.
AfD co-state spokesman Stefan Möller announced that he did not want to accept the decision: “We will go to the next instance.” This means that the legal dispute could continue before the Thuringian Higher Administrative Court. The deputy head of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Roger Derichs, was relieved. He assumes that the ruling will stand.
Specifically, the proceedings concerned three passages in the report in which posts by the two state spokespersons Björn Höcke and Stefan Möller were distorted and shortened from their point of view. In the report, they were titled “Islamophobia: Violations of human dignity”, “Attacks on the rule of law” and “Historical revisionism”.
The presiding judge said that the quotes were, on the whole, accurately reproduced and that their interpretation did not go beyond the necessary limits. For example, the office may view a statement by Björn Höcke that not all cultures are compatible as a violation of human dignity. It could also be interpreted as historical revisionism if the victims of the Holocaust were missing from a list of victims of the world wars in a post on Remembrance Day.
The public interest outweighs the stigma for the party associated with the publication, said the judge. In addition, AfD representatives could continue to publicly advocate the relevant theses despite such a publication.
The AfD repeatedly takes action against classifications by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution at state or federal level. In May, the Higher Administrative Court in Münster ruled that the classification of the AfD federal association as a suspected right-wing extremist case was legal. The Administrative Court in Munich ruled similarly in the case of the AfD in Bavaria. According to Möller, there are currently no plans to take action against the classification as a “confirmed right-wing extremist effort” in Thuringia.
The AfD has been polling at around 30 percent in Thuringia for weeks, well ahead of other parties. The state election is scheduled for September 1st.