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The Star
10-06-2025
- Politics
- The Star
Germany urges Dutch to crack down on citizens' border checks
FILE PHOTO: Germany's Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt and Sinan Selen, Vice-President of the German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (not pictured), attend a press conference to present the 'Constitution Protection Report 2024' in Berlin, Germany June 10, 2025. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch/File Photo BERLIN (Reuters) -Germany's interior minister and the head of its federal police union on Tuesday criticised unofficial border checks by citizens in the Netherlands, saying they expected decisive action from the Dutch authorities to stamp out such practices. A group of citizens carried out their own checks near the northern Dutch town of Ter Apel on Saturday evening, stopping vehicles to look for asylum seekers, local broadcaster RTV Noord reported on Sunday. The news comes a few days after Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders toppled the ruling coalition in a dispute over migration policy. While Wilders' party only shared power in the government, his anti-immigration views have shaped Dutch policy for decades. The Netherlands has some of the European Union's toughest policies on asylum and immigration. German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said on Tuesday there was no legal basis for the citizens' action. "I believe we will indeed take another look at this if this phenomenon continues ... I also assume that the authorities will end such measures," Dobrindt, who introduced stricter border controls and immediate rejections for asylum seekers last month, said in an emailed statement to Reuters. The head of Germany's Federal Police Union, Andreas Rosskopf, said the Dutch authorities' reaction had been "a bit too little", and urged greater efforts to avoid escalation. "It must be clear that citizens without legal authority have no right to intervene, to monitor, and ultimately to carry out the tasks of the security authorities, the police authorities," Rosskopf told journalists. Dutch broadcaster RTL reported that police found no criminal offence when they arrived at the scene. Caretaker Dutch Justice Minister David van Weel said citizens' frustration was understandable but that they must not take the law into their own hands. "Let the police and military police do their job," he said on social media platform X on Sunday. Dutch immigration has slowed significantly from a peak in 2022. The Netherlands received almost two first-time asylum applications per 1,000 inhabitants in 2024, slightly below the EU average, according to Eurostat data. (Reporting by Riham Alkousaa, Markus Wacket in Berlin, and Anthony Deutsch in Amsterdam. Editing by Mark Potter)
Straits Times
10-06-2025
- Politics
- Straits Times
Germany urges Dutch to crack down on citizens' border checks
FILE PHOTO: Germany's Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt and Sinan Selen, Vice-President of the German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (not pictured), attend a press conference to present the 'Constitution Protection Report 2024' in Berlin, Germany June 10, 2025. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch/File Photo BERLIN - Germany's interior minister and the head of its federal police union on Tuesday criticised unofficial border checks by citizens in the Netherlands, saying they expected decisive action from the Dutch authorities to stamp out such practices. A group of citizens carried out their own checks near the northern Dutch town of Ter Apel on Saturday evening, stopping vehicles to look for asylum seekers, local broadcaster RTV Noord reported on Sunday. The news comes a few days after Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders toppled the ruling coalition in a dispute over migration policy. While Wilders' party only shared power in the government, his anti-immigration views have shaped Dutch policy for decades. The Netherlands has some of the European Union's toughest policies on asylum and immigration. German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said on Tuesday there was no legal basis for the citizens' action. "I believe we will indeed take another look at this if this phenomenon continues ... I also assume that the authorities will end such measures," Dobrindt, who introduced stricter border controls and immediate rejections for asylum seekers last month, said in an emailed statement to Reuters. The head of Germany's Federal Police Union, Andreas Rosskopf, said the Dutch authorities' reaction had been "a bit too little", and urged greater efforts to avoid escalation. "It must be clear that citizens without legal authority have no right to intervene, to monitor, and ultimately to carry out the tasks of the security authorities, the police authorities," Rosskopf told journalists. Dutch broadcaster RTL reported that police found no criminal offence when they arrived at the scene. Caretaker Dutch Justice Minister David van Weel said citizens' frustration was understandable but that they must not take the law into their own hands. "Let the police and military police do their job," he said on social media platform X on Sunday. Dutch immigration has slowed significantly from a peak in 2022. The Netherlands received almost two first-time asylum applications per 1,000 inhabitants in 2024, slightly below the EU average, according to Eurostat data. REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Epoch Times
05-05-2025
- Politics
- Epoch Times
AfD Sues German Spy Agency After Being Labeled an Extremist Party
The Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) political party in Germany sued the country's domestic intelligence service on Monday for classifying it as a 'right-wing extremist organization.' The designation subjects the party, which came second in the national elections in February, to greater surveillance from state authorities. The AfD instigated legal proceedings at an administrative court in the city of Cologne, where the domestic intelligence service has its headquarters. A 'We will not allow a politically instrumentalized authority to attempt to distort democratic competition and delegitimize millions of votes,' they said. 'This shameful action undermines the fundamental values of our democracy—and has no place in a constitutional state.' Related Stories 5/2/2025 1/22/2025 A court spokesperson confirmed that the party had filed a suit and an urgent motion, the The move by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution—the formal name of the domestic intelligence service—means its officials can now use informants and other tools such as audio and video recordings to monitor the party's activities across Germany. The office, known as the BfV, warned that the party posed a threat to the country's democratic order, saying the AfD 'disregards human dignity,' in particular by what it called 'ongoing agitation' against refugees and migrants. After having regarded the AfD as a suspected extremist movement since 2021, the BfV designated the populist party as 'right-wing extremist' on May 2. BfV said in a statement that AfD's approach to ethnicity is 'not compatible with the free democratic basic order.' According to BfV's statement, AfD does not consider German nationals with a migration background from Muslim-origin countries as equal members of the German people. BfV Vice President Sinan Selen and Vice President Dr. Silke Willems said in a joint statement, 'We have come to the conviction that the Alternative for Germany is a definitively right-wing extremist movement.' The BfV has compiled a 1,100-page experts' report that it says will not be released to the public. As anti-illegal immigration parties have been gaining support across Europe, the AfD has attracted international attention, including support from tech billionaire Elon Musk. Some top Trump administration officials have criticized the decision. In an In its own social media post responding directly to Rubio, the German Foreign Ministry wrote, 'This is democracy,' and called the decision 'the result of a thorough & independent investigation to protect our Constitution & the rule of law.' The ministry said it is 'independent courts that will have the final say.' 'We have learnt from our history that right-wing extremism needs to be stopped,' it said. Certain U.S. Vice President JD Vance, who met with Weidel after the elections in February, wrote on 'Now the bureaucrats try to destroy it,' Vance said. The AfD has often faced criticism for its allegedly Russia-friendly positions and opposes Germany's stance toward the war in Ukraine. Berlin is Ukraine's second-biggest weapons supplier after the United States. Moscow also criticized the extremist classification of the party on Monday. 'The European political landscape itself is now full of various restrictive measures against those political forces and individuals whose world view does not fit into the dominant mainstream,' Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said. He said the classification of the AfD as extremist was a domestic affair and that Russia had no intention of interfering, Russian state news agency Owen Evans contributed to this report.
Irish Times
02-05-2025
- Politics
- Irish Times
Germany designates populist AfD as far-right ‘extremists'
Germany is free to step up state surveillance of Alternative for Germany (AfD) politicians after the party was classified as having 'guaranteed right-wing extremist intentions' by the country's domestic intelligence service (BfV). On Friday the BfV said it had passed on this recommendation to the federal interior ministry as part of a 1,100-page report on the party. Classifying the entire AfD as extremist lowers the legal threshold for the BfV to carry out – or expand – its electronic surveillance of party officials and creates more secure legal grounds for deploying paid informers inside party organisations. Excerpts from the classified report, released by the BfV, describes AfD politics as 'incompatible' with Germany's 'free democratic order', in particular for the party's 'ongoing' agitation against refugees and migrants. READ MORE BfV vice-president Sinan Selen said the organisation had reached its conclusions after three years studying AfD position papers and remarks by party leaders as well as 'new organisational developments', in particular the decline of its once-dominant conservative-liberal faction and the rise of its far-right wing. 'Decisive for our assessment is the AfD's ethnic-based understanding of the population,' the BfV said, 'which denigrates entire population groups in Germany and violates their human dignity. This understanding of the population is reflected in the party's overall anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim stance.' Outgoing federal interior minister Nancy Faeser said the domestic intelligence agency had been given a 'clear legal mandate to take action against extremism and protect our democracy'. She said the assessment had been carried out 'with no political influence whatsoever', noting that publication of the report was postponed from earlier this year for fear of interfering in February's snap federal election. Three months on from that poll, in advance of next week's federal government swearing-in, opinion polls show the AfD has gained an additional five points' support and is now Germany's most popular party with 26 per cent backing. AfD co-leaders Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla attacked the BfV conclusion as defamatory and 'a serious blow to German democracy' and 'targeted interference in the democratic decision-making process that is clearly politically motivated'. News of Friday's classification has revived demands for the AfD to be banned outright. Germany's incoming federal interior minister Alexander Dobrindt, whose job it would be to initiate any such procedure, declined to be drawn on a ban on Friday. But he said it was likely that German courts would soon confirm the BfV assessment. For Daniel Günther, state premier of the north-western state of Schleswig-Holstein, the BfV assessment was 'no surprise, but it brings clarity'. Mr Günther, a senior centre-right Christian Democrat (CDU) politician, said the AfD 'is a threat to our free and democratic basic order and it endangers our social peace'.
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
German intelligence confirms AfD as 'right-wing extremist' party
Germany's domestic intelligence agency said on Friday it has designated the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party as a confirmed "right-wing extremist" organization that "disregards human dignity." The new classification is the result of a comprehensive review, the findings of which are laid out in a 1,100-page report. It comes just days before Germany's new conservative-led government is set to take office under future chancellor Friedrich Merz. The agency, called the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), said there was now concrete evidence that the anti-immigrant party pursues efforts that threaten Germany's democratic order. "The party's prevailing understanding of the people based on ethnicity and descent is incompatible with the free democratic basic order," the agency said. Statements and positions by the party and leading AfD representatives violate the constitutional principle of the inviolability of human dignity, stated the agency's vice presidents, Sinan Selen and Silke Willems. Specifically, the agency said the AfD considers German citizens with roots in predominantly Muslim countries to be unequal citizens. Three regional branches of the party - in the eastern states of Thuringia, Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt - have already been classified as confirmed right-wing extremist organizations. The national party, which soared to a second-place finish in February's general election, previously held "suspected" extremist status by the agency. The party unsuccessfully challenged that designation in court. The courts upheld the classification in May 2024, allowing the BfV to have the party under surveillance, enabling it proportionate use of party informants, image and sound recordings. The designation as a confirmed right-wing extremist organization lowers the threshold for such surveillance measures. Surveillance by the BfV has no connection to bans on political parties, which can only be requested from the Constitutional Court by one of Germany's houses of parliament or the government itself. Outgoing Interior Minister Nancy Faeser emphasized that the BfV's decision was independent and not politically motivated. "There has been no political influence whatsoever on the new report," she said in a statement. "The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution has a clear legal mandate to combat extremism and protect our democracy," she said. Founded in 2013 as an anti-euro party, the AfD quickly shifted direction as nationalist and far-right figures rose to prominence, prompting many of its original members to depart. The party gained significant momentum during the 2015 refugee crisis, when hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers entered Germany. In the 2017 federal election, the AfD emerged as the third-largest party in the lower house of parliament, securing 12.6% of the national vote. Although its share dropped to 10.4% in 2021, the party rebounded strongly this year, doubling its support to 20.8%. Despite its nationwide gains, the AfD's strongest support remains concentrated in eastern Germany.
