The far-right Alternative for Germany party should be investigated by the security services for promoting an extremist agenda, Germany’s justice minister said Monday.
Heiko Maas said AfD is “on its way to becoming a case” for the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution — the intelligence service responsible for monitoring extremist organizations and protecting the constitution.
“Whoever wants to let refugees, men, women and children be shot at the border, they represent inhumane positions,” said Maas, referring to comments earlier this month by AfD leader Frauke Petry, who said law enforcement officers should “use weapons if necessary” to prevent refugees from entering Germany.
“No policeman wants to fire on a refugee and I don’t want that either,” Petry said, adding that it could be necessary because police “must stop refugees entering on German soil.”
Beatrix von Storch, AfD’s deputy leader and an MEP, also said that police should be allowed to use weapons against women and children who enter Germany illegally. She later tried to water down her remarks, saying that “the use of firearms against children is not permitted,” but “women are a different matter.”
“We cannot prepare the ground for people who have waited for the increase of refugees or the series of events on New Year’s Eve in Cologne to find a justification for xenophobia and racism,” Maas, a Social Democrat, said, adding that “the AfD lives off the protest and resentment that it stirs.”
Last week, the European commissioner for digital economy, Günther Oettinger, said that if Petry was his wife he would shoot himself.