The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party organization in the southern German state of Bavaria may be under surveillance as a suspected extremist organization, a court in Munich ruled on Monday.
The decision, which dismissed a lawsuit by the Bavarian AfD, clears the way for the deployment of undercover agents and the interception of communications to keep an eye on the group.
Two lower courts had previously made similar rulings.
At the start of the hearing, Stephan Protschka, the chairman of the Bavarian state AfD, said he did not expect the complaint to be successful and announced that the party would file further appeals.
AfD party organizations in several German states are subject to similar surveillance as suspected or known far-right extremists. This also applies to some groups affiliated with the party at the national level, including the AfD youth wing.
The Bavarian Office for the Protection of the Constitution, a state-level intelligence agency that monitors potential threats to Germany’s democratic values ​​and institutions, announced in 2022 that it would begin monitoring the state party AfD.
The intelligence community pledged in the announcement to release public reports on its findings, but the agency said it had not deployed undercover agents or monitored phone calls until a final judicial decision in the case was made.
The court ruled that thousands of pages of evidence collected by the agency from publicly available sources – including chat transcripts and excerpts of speeches – prove that the AfD is adhering to the constitution and that surveillance is justified.
The spectrum ranges from anti-foreigner and anti-Islamic statements to anti-democratic statements by AfD members and party officials, the court said on Monday.
