The AfD will appeal against the constitutional protection judgment of the administrative court in Cologne. According to WELT information, the federal executive board of the party decided this. On March 8 of this year, the Cologne court decided that the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution could classify the AfD as a suspected right-wing extremist and therefore monitor the entire party.

Since the parties involved received the written judgment on May 3rd, an appeal must be lodged by June 3rd. The Higher Administrative Court for the state of North Rhine-Westphalia is responsible. The appeal must be justified within a further month.

“In our opinion, the written reasons for the judgment have also shown several times that the judges’ arguments are incomprehensible,” said a party spokesman when asked by WELT. The classification as a suspected case is “unjustified in every respect”, which is why the AfD will fight back “with all means”. “We firmly assume that the next higher authority will agree with us in this regard,” the spokesman continued.

In its judgment, the administrative court found that there were “sufficiently weighty factual indications of efforts against the free democratic basic order” in the AfD. “Numerous statements and actions attributable to the plaintiff could be found for such clues,” not only within the Young Alternatives and the formally dissolved wing, “but also from the announcements of the entire party and the leading representatives there,” it says in the Verdict. Statements that violate human dignity, as well as “anti-foreigner agitation” are “not (no longer) mere derailments of individual officials”, but “an expression of a general effort” of the AfD.

The party takes the opposite view: “Affected and damaged by the misjudgment in Cologne with the AfD is a party that is firmly rooted in the free-democratic basic order in every respect,” said a spokesman.

The appeal procedure has no suspensive effect: the Office for the Protection of the Constitution is already allowed to use intelligence tools to monitor the party, for example by recruiting informants, tapping telephone calls and intercepting e-mails.

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