The federal executive committee of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) is now asking its own MPs about their migration background, with the data expected to be used to defend the party against the country’s domestic intelligence agency, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV).
The survey asks AfD politicians if they were born without German citizenship, or if they had at least one parent born without German citizenship. In addition, they request to know if they have a “marriage or partnership” with a migrant.
“We therefore ask all recipients of this letter who have the migration background described above and who wish to support us in our legal defense against the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution by stating their name in proceedings before the North Rhine-Westphalian Higher Administrative Court in Münster to reply to this email,” reads the request.
As Remix News previously reported, the German political establishment, along with the BfV, are working towards a potential ban on the party. A potential defense against claims of xenophobia is the number of MPs who have a migration background or relationships with foreigners. For example, Alice Weidel, the party co-leader, notably married a Sri Lankan woman and adopted children together.
Currently, the Office of the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) lists the entire AfD party as a “suspected case” of right-wing extremism while the party is a “definitive case” of right-wing extremism in some German states, which allows law enforcement to utilize extremely invasive forms of surveillance against all members of the AfD in those specific states.
These designations should help the German state to build its case for a potential ban on the AfD, which would ultimately be decided by the country’s highest court, the Constitutional Court.
