As a part of her ongoing oppression campaign targeting the political opposition, Germany’s activist interior minister has announced that the state will take action to ban the assembly of ‘right-wing extremist’ groups—namely the ascendent AfD, its exponents, and any other group she considers a threat to the left-liberal order.
The radical measures, set to be implemented as a part of Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser’s 13-step plan to combat the so-called ‘extreme right,’ have been revealed by an information request submitted to the Federal Ministry of the Interior by the German portal Apollo News.
The bans will be enforced by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, which operates under the direction of Faeser’s ministry. New measures pave the way for the BfV to provide information it has concerning some ‘right-wing extremist’ organizers to local regulatory authorities, who will then face pressure to ensure that access to venues will be blocked.
Local regulatory authorities, including police, as well as bodies responsible for supervising local trade and restaurants, will then be able to “examine the issuance of any bans or restrictions on a well-founded, as comprehensive as possible, factual basis,” the interior ministry’s response to the inquiry reads.
In its response, Faeser’s ministry did not specify the mechanism by which events would be banned. Additionally, when asked if, under the new measures, there would be reporting requirements for restaurant owners if they suspect ‘right-wing extremist’ events planned at their establishment, the ministry claimed these were not planned.
“Intensified, consistent clarification and consolidation of knowledge regarding relevant right-wing extremist activities … will be a focus of the work of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution in the future,” the ministry wrote in its response.
For AfD MEP Joachim Kuhs, authorities are unlikely to execute the measures ordered by Faeser. Speaking to The European Conservative, Kuhs said:
This measure can be ordered by not enforced. Lawsuits filed by the AfD against similar measures in the past have always been successful.
The news comes a week after the social democrat minister Nancy Faeser, who has written for a far-left Antifa magazine with links to extremism, unveiled the so-called ‘democracy promotion’ act which looks to grant sweeping new authority to the heavily politicized Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) under the guise of combatting ‘right-wing extremism.’
Faeser’s ‘democracy promotion’ act has been sharply criticized by high-ranking members of the ruling traffic light coalition. Bundestag Vice President Wolfgang Kubicki, a member of the liberal, pro-business Free Democrat Party, went so far as to call the proposed law “a threat to democracy.” Kubicki added,
You have to ask yourself who is more dangerous for our constitutional order: those who move within the limits of what is permitted, or those who want to limit the scope of what is permitted to their liking.