Gauland: stick to our program – Politics

This announces Gauland, the director of AfD, after one critic advised his party to exercise restraint. Co-Chief Meuthen describes the possible observation by protecting the constitution as being motivated by political considerations.

AfD President Jörg Meuthen rejected reflections on a party comment by constitutional protection as "politically motivated". The party relies on the founding of the liberal democratic constitution, he said at a press conference in Berlin. Party and group president Alexander Gauland said: "We are fully committed to our program". The party will continue to systematically try to apply its "program in democratic competition" and not let it be damaged.

The smoldering debate over a possible observation of the AFD by constitutional protection had been fueled by the announcement of an internal report on Friday. In the letter written by the party itself, an AfD lawyer provides "recommendations for action" on how to avoid observation.

NDR, WDR and South German newspaper Dietrich Murswiek, a lawyer, warns the party, among others, against the use of certain terms such as "Umvolkung" and "Überfremdung", but also before the revocation of "old parties" or the "false press" as such indications permitting could provide constitutional protection.

In his statement, Meuthen tried to direct the public to other parties. In particular, Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) and Foreign Minister Heiko Maas (SPD), who, as Minister of Justice, had advanced the law on networked law, had accused restrictions on freedom of expression.

Those who have asked the AFD to be observed do not abide by the law, for example in the case of the rescue of the euro or the migration policy, said Meuthen. Instead, we should "accept the constitutionality of the Federal Chancellor". "We do not commit violations of the law, but we are the ones who denounce violations of the law." In the audience will be measured with "completely different measure". Everything is allowed, "as long as it is in some way against the law".

AFD accuses the Chancellor of having broken the law with regard to the mbadive immigration of refugees in 2015. The European Court of Justice (ECJ) later declared that Ms Merkel she had not respected the rules of competence of the European Union, but that she was authorized to do so.

His party has a very broad interpretation of freedom of expression, said Meuthen. Even in the case of AfD but all should not be said. The AfD takes the authorities very seriously. People who oppose the liberal democratic order do not have their place in the party. She has to separate from these members and she does it. In recent weeks, she has persuaded several problematic members to leave the party. The party, however, was "definitely not" pushing into a wave of exclusion from the party, said Meuthen. In addition, legal barriers to party exclusions are very high.

Roland Hartwig, a member of the Bundestag and chairman of the party's "Constitution Protection Working Group," announced that the AfD would defend itself legally. The party wanted the European Court of Human Rights to check whether the public declaration made by the authorities to verify the observation of the AfD had been authorized under European law. The party would be mbadively disadvantaged in the competition of the parties.

Distance from "Pro Chemnitz"

Hartwig also announced that the federal executive had placed the organization "Pro Chemnitz" on the list of incompatibilities. The members of Pro Chemnitz had participated in Chemnitz in September in a rally organized by the AfD state badociations such as Saxony, Brandenburg and Thuringia. According to media reports, Pro Chemnitz's leader, Martin Kohlmann, is being monitored by the Saxon State Office for the Protection of the Constitution as part of the right-wing extremist scene.

In the AfD, the opinion of the lawyer Murswiek had aroused strong emotion, namely "bans of thought and speech". The head of the AFD in Thuringia, Björn Höcke, warned his party of panic. The fear of an intelligence service observation is "political enuresis".

The Green Konstantin von Notz group, however, regards the report as evidence of the party's "extreme radicalization". "With the list of anti-constitutionality symptoms that she herself has created, the party seems to self-diagnose that the AfD is constitutionally lost," von Notz said. Handelsblatt,