Germany designates rising far-right AfD party as ‘extremist’ group


Germany’s domestic intelligence agency on Friday designated the far-right Alternative for Germany party, or AfD, as an “extremist endeavor,” a move that lowers hurdles for the spy agency in conducting certain kinds of surveillance on the party, the second-largest in Germany’s parliament.

In a statement, the intelligence agency said the designation was “due to the extremist nature of the entire party, which disregards human dignity.” The statement cited the group’s anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant orientation. The reclassification — AfD was previously designated a “suspected” extremist group — is likely to reignite debate over potentially banning the party via Germany’s Constitutional Court.

Read more…
Source: MSN News


Sign up for our Newsletter
The latest news and insights delivered right to your inbox.


Related:

  • Users of illegal websites targeted in joint law-enforcement activity

    January 29, 2019

    The National Crime Agency, working with law enforcement partners from 14 countries, has taken action against a number of cyber criminals website users linked to four million attacks across the globe. This latest action is part of Operation Power Off, which pursues those individuals and services responsible for committing or facilitating DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) ...

  • Angela Merkel’s personal details leaked on Twitter

    January 4, 2019

    An unknown hacker has released confidential data linked to the German Chancellor Angela Merkel and hundreds of the country’s other politicians. The stolen details were released on Twitter over the past few weeks in a sort of Advent Calendar and included bills and credit card information, phone numbers, email addresses, photo identification and personal chat histories. The Twitter ...

  • Germany proposes router security guidelines

    November 26, 2018

    The German government published at the start of the month an initial draft for rules on securing Small Office and Home Office (SOHO) routers. Published by the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI), the rules have been put together with input from router vendors, German telecoms, and the German hardware community. Once approved, router manufacturers don’t ...

  • German court rules Facebook’s use of personal data ‘illegal’

    February 13, 2018

    A German consumer rights group has said that a court had found Facebook’s use of personal data to be illegal because the US social media platform did not adequately secure the informed consent of its users. The verdict, from a Berlin regional court, comes as Big Tech faces increasing scrutiny in Germany over its handling of sensitive personal data that enables ...

  • German intelligence unmasks alleged covert Chinese social media profiles

    December 11, 2017

    Germany’s intelligence service has published the details of social network profiles which it says are fronts faked by Chinese intelligence to gather personal information about German officials and politicians. The BfV domestic intelligence service took the unusual step of naming individual profiles it says are fake and fake organizations to warn public officials about the risk ...

  • Bad Rabbit: New Ransomware Attack Rapidly Spreading Across Europe

    October 24, 2017

    A new widespread ransomware attack is spreading like wildfire around Europe and has already affected over 200 major organisations, primarily in Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and Germany, in the past few hours. Dubbed “Bad Rabbit,” is reportedly a new Petya-like targeted ransomware attack against corporate networks, demanding 0.05 bitcoin (~ $285) as ransom from victims to unlock ...