Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution on Friday designated the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) as a designated right-wing extremist organisation that poses a threat to democracy and the constitutional order.
The office cited the AfD’s xenophobic stances on ethnicity as the reason for the decision, which it said was discriminatory towards non-ethnic Germans.
In the February elections, the party came in second, after the centre-right CDU and ahead of the centre-left SPD, the two parties that will form the new government.
The same decision was already in place for some sections of the party, including its youth wing.
Now the German parliament could ask for the entire party to be dissolved, which would then have to be confirmed by the Constitutional Court. However, it is very unlikely that this will actually happen.
This is a developing story and our journalists are working on further updates.