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Rubio says decision to classify Germany’s AfD as extremist is ‘tyranny in disguise’

"Germany should reverse course," the US Secretary of State stated

WASHINGTON, May 2. /TASS/. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has slammed the German counterintelligence agency’s decision to designate the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party as a right-wing extremist entity as non-democratic.

"Germany just gave its spy agency new powers to surveil the opposition. That’s not democracy - it’s tyranny in disguise," he wrote on his X page. "What is truly extremist is not the popular AfD - which took second in the recent election - but rather the establishment’s deadly open border immigration policies that the AfD opposes."

"Germany should reverse course," he stated.

Earlier on Friday, Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (the country's counterintelligence agency) classified the Alternative for Germany party "as a settled extremist organization," which is "characterized by its extremist orientation and disregard for human dignity." Following this decision, the authorities place the party members under surveillance. This decision however does not mean a ban on the party‘s activities - this can be done only by The Federal Constitutional Court. In case it does so, AfD will be the third part to be banned in Germany after the Socialist Reich Party uniting former Nazis that was banned in 1952, and the Communist Party of Germany that was banned in 1952.

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