Secretary of State Marco Rubio condemned a decision Friday from Germany’s domestic intelligence agency to classify the political party Alternative for Germany (AfD) as a “proven right-wing extremist organization,” calling the move “tyranny in disguise” and advising the country to “reverse course.”
“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,” Rubio wrote in a post on X in the hours following the decision.
The decision, announced Friday by Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, gives German authorities increased oversight and surveillance over AfD. While some AfD branches at the state level have received the label — such as in Saxony and Thuringia — this is the first time in modern German history that a party with nationwide representation on the federal level has been classified as extremist.
The party won a record 152 parliament seats in the February federal elections and now holds 20.8 percent of the vote.
After conducting a three-year-long investigation into the party, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution released a 1,000 page report, citing violations of core constitutional principles including human dignity and the rule of law.
President Donald Trump and his inner circle have been largely supportive of the AfD. AfD co-leader Alice Weidel was one of many foreign leaders invited to attend Trump’s inauguration and Elon Musk has shown continued support for the party and spoke at an election campaign event for the AfD in January.
“Banning the centrist AfD, Germany’s, most popular party, would be an extreme attack on democracy,” Musk wrote in a post on X.
