The internal intelligence of the German region of Saxony announced Friday, May 7 to extend their police surveillance to members of the Islamophobic movement Pegida born in this region of the former GDR, calling it "
extremist
" and "
unconstitutional
".
Read also: In Germany, the AfD placed under police surveillance
"
It is no longer possible to consider
" the movement created in 2014 "
as a component of the far-right scene
", estimated the regional branch of the German Office for the Protection of the Constitution, calling it now "
movement with manifest extremist aspirations
”. Pegida is thus classified in groups contrary to the constitution and their members subject to police surveillance, she added. Other German regions, such as Bavaria, had taken similar measures.
If it initially attracted a “
heterogeneous public
” defending “
moderate
”
positions
, it has become radicalized over the years, both ideologically and verbally, continues the institution. "
Positions are propagated in public which are incompatible with all the values of the Federal Republic of Germany
", she argued, citing among others the rejection of parliamentarism, the rule of law or anti-Semitic positions. , anti-Islam and hostile to minorities.
Launched in 2014 by Lutz Bachmann from spontaneous and weekly demonstrations in Dresden, Pegida was at the origin of the push of the anti-migrant far-right in Germany, currently the first opposition force in the Bundestag, the lower house of the parliament. Bordering Poland and the Czech Republic, in the former GDR, Saxony caused a political earthquake during the legislative elections in September 2017: the anti-immigrant, anti-Merkel and anti-Islam party AfD (Alternative pour l 'Germany) had become the leading regional political force with 27% of the vote, twice the national average.
At the beginning of March, the internal intelligence had put the whole of the AfD under police surveillance, arguing of attacks on democratic order, before the decision was suspended for procedural matters mainly by an administrative court in Cologne. At the end of April, Intelligence also put under surveillance part of the anti-restrictions movement linked to the pandemic, which regularly manifests in the country and according to him propagates conspiracy theories.