Far-right AfD can be probed in Bavaria over extremism, court rules

The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) chapter in the southern state of Bavaria can be investigated by intelligence services, a court in Munich ruled on Wednesday. 

The anti-immigrant AfD, Germany's largest opposition party, has faced probes both at the national level and in many of the country's 16 states over its extremist views, which security agencies have deemed a threat to the constitutional democratic order. 

Last year, just months after the party came second in parliamentary elections, the national intelligence agency deemed the AfD a "confirmed" case of right-wing extremism, but use of the term has been suspended pending a legal appeal.

The ruling comes with the AfD far ahead of Chancellor Friedrich Merz's conservatives in national polls, just three months before important state elections in eastern Germany. 

The party could secure an unprecedented absolute majority in Saxony-Anhalt, allowing it to form a state government for the first time.

In Bavaria, Germany's largest state by area, the state Office for the Protection of the Constitution first announced an investigation into the AfD in 2022, leading to several legal complaints by the party. 

Two years later, the Munich Administrative Court dismissed the lawsuits, finding evidence of anti-constitutional activities within the party based on an "ethnic-biological conception of the nation."

It also ruled that the evidence of extreme right-wing tendencies was important enough for the public to be informed of the decision to investigate the party.

Following another AfD appeal, the Bavarian Higher Administrative Court on Tuesday confirmed the lower court's ruling.

The Munch-based court stated that the decision was final, arguing that the issues raised by the AfD have already been clarified in case law, and stating that objections to the judgement were not upheld.

It highlighted statements on "remigration" by AfD politicians, the defamation of people from migrant backgrounds or of Muslim faith, "overthrow fantasies" and "agitation against the free democratic basic order."

The Bavarian AfD chapter is far from alone in having attracted the attention of intelligence services.

In eastern states such as Brandenburg, Saxony, Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt, the state AfD branch is classified as "confirmed right-wing extremist," while several regional chapters in western Germany are "suspected" cases.