afd hardens radical antimuslim course
Last Updated : GMT 09:40:38
Themuslimchronicle, themuslimchronicle
Themuslimchronicle, themuslimchronicle
Last Updated : GMT 09:40:38
Themuslimchronicle, themuslimchronicle

The Alternative For Germany Party

AfD hardens radical, anti-Muslim course

Themuslimchronicle, themuslimchronicle

Themuslimchronicle, themuslimchronicleAfD hardens radical, anti-Muslim course

Von Storch started 2018 by attacking police in Cologne for tweeting in Arabic.
Berlin - Muslimchronicle

The Alternative for Germany party started the year by railing against "barbaric, Muslim, gang-raping hordes", ending months of relative post-election calm and any remaining doubt about its hardening far-right course.

If the AfD had been at pains to portray itself as a patriotic conservative force after the September 24 polls, the latest slur signalled that an extremist faction is winning the battle for control, say political scientists.

"The radical course has been cemented," said Hajo Funke of Berlin's Free University, adding that the AfD was now openly reaching out to the right-wing extremist fringe, including neo-Nazis and white-pride Identitarians.

Funke said the former anti-euro party had steadily radicalised, purged its more moderate figures, built bridges to groups such as the anti-Islam Pegida street movement, and had never publicly expelled a far-right member.

While the AfD's declared enemy, Chancellor Angela Merkel, has been struggling to form a new government with the Social Democrats, the AfD has barely been out of the headlines in recent weeks.

In a familiar pattern, its provocations have been followed by vague apologies but also complaints about "political correctness" and censorship by a liberal media and political "thought police".

Meanwhile, long-unthinkable content has appeared on social media despite tough new rules against online hate speech.

Days ago, said Funke and news reports, an AfD local politician in Berlin's multicultural Neukoelln district, Franziska Lorenz-Hoffmann, briefly posted a Nazi-era propaganda poster on Facebook that warned the "German woman" to "keep your blood pure".

- 'Groping migrant mobs' -

AfD deputy leader Beatrix von Storch started 2018 by attacking police in the western city of Cologne for tweeting in Arabic, as well as in German, English and French, on New Year's Eve.

"What the hell is going on with this country?" she wrote. "Did you mean to placate the barbaric, Muslim, gang-raping hordes of men?"

The comment pointed to mass sexual assaults there in 2016 by mostly North African men whom the far-right labelled "rapefugees".

The inflammatory tweet was quickly taken down, while Cologne police filed a criminal complaint.

AfD parliamentary group leader Alice Weidel chimed in with a "solidarity tweet" about "marauding, groping migrant mobs".

And AfD chairman Alexander Gauland charged that the new online "censorship law" amounted to "Stasi (secret police) methods" from the former communist East Germany, a region which is today the party's heartland.

Another tweet, from AfD lawmaker Jens Maier's account, defamed tennis legend Boris Becker's adult son Noah as "a little half-negro".

The tweet was deleted, and Maier apologised while insisting it was written by a staff member who no longer worked for him.

The party's leadership warned Maier to take greater care in managing his employees.

Noah Becker filed a criminal complaint and his father demanded "consequences" in an article for a Sunday newspaper.

"That's what they always do in the AfD, that's their trick: put something out there, then distance yourself from it," Becker charged.

- 'Unleash aggression' -

The AfD, formed in 2013 as an anti-euro party, two year later shifted course to capitalise on fears about a mass influx of more than one million asylum seekers to Germany, while demanding "Merkel must go".

It won almost 13 percent of the vote on September 24, the strongest showing for a far-right party in the post-war era.

There has been no sign of voters deserting the AfD after using it to register discontent with the leftward drift of Merkel's Christian Democrats at the election, as some political observers had speculated.

A new poll this week by Spiegel Online gave it 14.7 percent support.

In a country that has long struggled to deal with its collective guilt over the Nazi era and the Holocaust, the taboo-breaking new extremists have reawakened deep fears about rising xenophobia and race hate.

Berlin daily Tagesspiegel said "the worst thing is that, the more AfD officials say such things, the more quickly they become normal. The outrage wears off, and at some point there will no longer be an outcry."

Robert Vehrkampf of think-tank the Bertelsmann Foundation called the AfD a generally right-wing populist party that "breaks taboos in a calculated way to reach right-wing extremist voters".

Funke said the recent hardline tweets "did not happen because someone's computer mouse slipped, they were calculated".

"Their idea is we unleash the aggression, we want to integrate the far-right, the neo-Nazis, into our party."

 

Source: AFP

themuslimchronicle
themuslimchronicle

Name *

E-mail *

Comment Title*

Comment *

: Characters Left

Mandatory *

Terms of use

Publishing Terms: Not to offend the author, or to persons or sanctities or attacking religions or divine self. And stay away from sectarian and racial incitement and insults.

I agree with the Terms of Use

Security Code*

afd hardens radical antimuslim course afd hardens radical antimuslim course

 



Themuslimchronicle, themuslimchronicle

GMT 11:36 2018 Thursday ,04 January

Mountain bike world champ seriously hurt in car crash

GMT 12:47 2016 Saturday ,24 September

How to save endangered species

GMT 12:08 2011 Tuesday ,22 November

Mini Éclairs

GMT 11:17 2017 Thursday ,16 November

UN warns fuel running out

GMT 09:11 2017 Monday ,25 September

German campaign takeaways and challenges

GMT 22:02 2017 Tuesday ,19 September

Tariq Yahia says his team is ready

GMT 22:17 2017 Sunday ,01 January

Israeli forces nab 6 Palestinians in WB

GMT 11:08 2017 Thursday ,14 September

New Zealand opposition looks

GMT 19:26 2014 Tuesday ,30 December

Bahrain to implement several development projects

GMT 17:08 2016 Friday ,18 November

South Korea blocks Google export of map data

GMT 13:34 2012 Thursday ,16 February

Q&A: Tuition fees

GMT 04:08 2011 Thursday ,06 October

US dominates university global rankings

GMT 14:15 2013 Thursday ,07 March

The £599 anti-ageing cream formulated by NASA

GMT 16:15 2011 Sunday ,11 December

Iran starts exams for nanotechnology teachers

GMT 07:13 2015 Tuesday ,14 April

Nokia: It is in talks to buy all of Alcatel-Lucent

GMT 13:19 2012 Monday ,12 March

I\'m grateful to Al-Haya

GMT 14:09 2011 Tuesday ,19 April

US urges Pakistan to continue economic reforms

GMT 09:32 2016 Wednesday ,07 December

Injured Rose was '50-50' for HK Open defence
Themuslimchronicle, themuslimchronicle
Themuslimchronicle, themuslimchronicle
 
 Themuslimchronicle Facebook,themuslimchronicle facebook  Themuslimchronicle Twitter,themuslimchronicle twitter Themuslimchronicle Rss,themuslimchronicle rss  Themuslimchronicle Youtube,themuslimchronicle youtube  Themuslimchronicle Youtube,themuslimchronicle youtube

Maintained and developed by Arabs Today Group SAL.
All rights reserved to Arab Today Media Group 2023 ©

Maintained and developed by Arabs Today Group SAL.
All rights reserved to Arab Today Media Group 2023 ©

muslimchronicle muslimchronicle muslimchronicle muslimchronicle
themuslimchronicle themuslimchronicle themuslimchronicle
themuslimchronicle
بناية النخيل - رأس النبع _ خلف السفارة الفرنسية _بيروت - لبنان
themuslimchronicle, themuslimchronicle, themuslimchronicle