Germany’s spy agency BfV has labeled the entirety of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party as an extremist entity.

The BfV domestic intelligence agency, which is in charge of safeguarding Germany’s constitutional order, said the announcement comes after an “intense and comprehensive” examination.

“The ethnicity-and ancestry-based conception of the people that predominates within the party is not compatible with the free democratic order,” the BfV said on Friday.

Hopefully this inspires the other parties to to start the process to see the AfD banned. I know the report might not look like much, because of how obvious the findings are. But previous attempts at banning them have failed because such an official report was missing. So maybe our political system starts getting its shit together.

As we say in Germany: Hope dies last

  • electric_nan@lemmy.ml
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    2 days ago

    “The ethnicity-and ancestry-based conception of the people that predominates within the party is not compatible with the free democratic order,”

    Great news, but also ironic considering German uncritical support for Israel.

      • futatorius@lemm.ee
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        1 day ago

        A democracy cannot exist when anti-democratic elements can seize power. In other words, violate the social contract and get your sorry fascist ass banned.

        • FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au
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          23 hours ago

          And banning opposition parties is anti-democratic. Can you think of any other German government that banned opposing political parties?

          • CXORA@aussie.zone
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            13 hours ago

            Putting someone in prison violates their freedom.

            Putting someone in prison because they murdered someone is still the right thing to do.

          • chillhelm@lemmy.world
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            23 hours ago

            No. Banning opposition parties BECAUSE THEY ARE OPPOSITION PARTIES would be undemocratic. Banning opposition parties because they are anti democratic is not.

            What you are saying is like “killing someone is murder”, while ignoring the fact that self defence is a thing that happens, is legal and is moral and IS NOT MURDER.

        • cyberblob@discuss.tchncs.de
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          1 day ago

          While you can argue that Individuals in the AfD are antidemocratic, I honestly do not see evidence for that on the general party level.

          I read their program. Weird? Yes. Antidemocratic? No.

          • chillhelm@lemmy.world
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            23 hours ago

            The Bundesverfassungsschutz has released a 1000 page report detailing their investigation and assessment. I find it unsurprising that the AfDs advertising material for an election hides their anti democratic aspects.

      • orgrinrt@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Paradox of tolerance and whatnot… It’s not ironic. Not only is it compatible, it is essential to its existence.

        • FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au
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          23 hours ago

          It’s anti-democratic boo matter what paradox you want to try and spin it as.

          This is one side who fears losing power trying to eliminate their political opponent who is rapidly gaining followers. It’s authoritarian, it’s anti-democratic, and it’s fascism. It’s LITERALLY WHAT THE NAZIS DID for crying out loud!

          Democracy means the will of the people. The government banning the party that has the most supporters is the exact opposite of that.

          • orgrinrt@lemmy.world
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            15 hours ago

            That is naive and reduces the entire argument to black and white.

            The world is not black and white. Its not even shades of gray. It can not be simplified like that, even less the way you attempt to.

      • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
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        1 day ago

        No existing democracy is absolute, and there’s a pretty strong argument it has to be that way.

        • toastmeister@lemmy.ca
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          16 hours ago

          What if I’m against immigration due to a housing bubble that is destroying the poor and dramatically increasing price to income ratios, am I a racist or a saint?

          I think anyone with a brain can see that in many countries mass immigration is being used to depress wages and invert the phillips curve after QE, or to prop up GDP to avoid a technical recession in favor of a per-capita recession, which is for some reason not defined or acknowledged. It also clearly hurts the poor and benefits the rich via asset price inflation and higher rental income.

          • Katzimir@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            13 hours ago

            since you asked: ", am I a racist or a saint? "

            you seem to acknowledge the functionality of undermining the working class by inviting people who have even less to work for even less. And yet you chose to be vocally against immigration (since that would help with a symptom)- while you could also be pointing out the failures of the regulatory body that allows for the many to be opressed by a parasitic few or even pointing out that the parasitic few are to be taken out of the equation. Kicking down is weak.

            • toastmeister@lemmy.ca
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              7 hours ago

              If you want systemic change to the economic system there’s definitely an order of operations here to follow, wouldn’t you agree?

              If I want to redesign a roller coaster my first step shouldn’t be to start removing the tracks while passengers are on it.

    • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Germany supports Israel but they’re also critical of it. They have active arrest warrants for Netanyahu if he ever steps foot in their jurisdiction.

      For Germany the ideal outcome would be peaceful continuation of both Israel and Palestine. If protecting one means harming the other, they will take no action. Israel is an important military stronghold against eastern powers and will continue to hold special privileges.

      • Spectrism@feddit.org
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        1 day ago

        They have active arrest warrants for Netanyahu if he ever steps foot in their jurisdiction.

        We do? Last I checked, the arrest warrant only came from the ICC, which Germany technically has to follow, but we haven’t issued our own arrest warrant, haven’t positioned ourselves clearly in support of the ICC’s warrant, and our politicians appear to be working on legal ways to not have to arrest Netanyahu if he actually comes to visit as planned by Friedrich Merz. All parties currently part of the government, with the only possible exception being The Left, seem to be way too much in favor of Israel.

        • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          You’re correct that the warrant is the ICC jurisdiction and not any other courts in Germany. As of May of last year Steffen Hebestreit representing the Olaf Scholz administration said they would.

          Scholz’s spokesman, Steffen Hebestreit, was asked on Wednesday if the German government would execute an ICC arrest order against Prime Minister Netanyahu for alleged war crimes during Swords of Iron.

          Hebestreit said, “Of course. Yes, we abide by the law.”

          The Jerusalem Post

          And that comes after he had been a vocal advocate of Israel up to that point.

          • Spectrism@feddit.org
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            1 day ago

            What Hebestreit says here is not to be trusted. He is always beating around the bush when he is being asked these questions, and “we will abide by the law” most likely means “we will find every legal loophole to not have to arrest him”. In another press conference held on 2024-11-22, he was asked to clarify the wording on the released statement about the now actually issued arrest warrant, which was actually lacking a statement like the one from May about abiding by the law. When asked about it, he always responded with “I don’t have to answer, I will just refer you to what’s written in the text”, instead of simply stating that “we will abide by the law”. Furthermore, when asked what the federal government had to check before officially acknowledging the arrest warrant, he mentioned that “lawyers had to check if the ICC was even responsible for issuing such an arrest warrant”, even though Wagner, the spokesperson for the State Department, mentioned that “this court [the ICC] is independent and we respect this independence”. Nothing these spokespeople say makes any sense. They respect the independence of the ICC, but have to check if the ICC is actually responsible and has legal authority to issue an arrest warrant in this case? I’m not buying it. They stand behind the ICC and respect its independence, but only when it alligns with the views of the German federal government, which summarizes German politics as a whole quite well.

            You can watch the full press conference here (relevant chapter: Haftbefehl gegen Netanjahu (Tilo), ~5:00-16:20, turn on auto-translation if you don’t speak German).

      • futatorius@lemm.ee
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        1 day ago

        Israel is an important military stronghold against eastern powers and will continue to hold special privileges.

        Tell me all the times Israelis have died to protect their Western allies.

        • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          Tell it to World Power governments, not me. Iran is in thick with Russia and China and I don’t see any middle eastern nations lining up to join NATO.