The interior minister of one German state has openly advocated for anti-lockdown protesters to be classified as “right-wing extremists”.
Georg Maier, the left-wing interior minister of the German state of Thuringia, has said that he wants to see all COVID-19 protesters in the country classified as “right-wing extremists”.
The leftist minister’s comments come shortly after the release of a report by Germany’s “Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution”, which has claimed that such “right-wing extremism” remains the biggest threat to the state.
According to a report by Der Spiegel, Maier has demanded that the country’s “lateral thinker” population — a term commonly used in Germany to refer to those who disagree with the country’s draconian lockdown rules — should all be labelled as “right-wing extremists”.
Such a characterisation could see lockdown sceptics come under even more pressure from the state, up to and including covert surveillance if the nation’s treatment of the populist Alternative für Deutschland is in any way representative.
“We have to tighten up the classification of politically organized crime, especially with the corona deniers,” the publication reports the minister as saying.
Maier also demanded that-called “Reich citizens” — people who supposedly reject the legitimacy of the current Federal Republic — receive the same treatment, with the state already having targetted those deemed to be associated with the movement.
This recently included one retired teacher in the west of the country who had her pension stripped over her “critical democrat” political views, while a former police officer in Bavaria received similar treatment.
While it is unclear how likely it is that the leftist minister’s demands are heeded, even if both groups of people evade being automatically labelled as “right-wing”, it remains likely that German authorities will nevertheless increase their efforts in suppressing them.
This is evidenced by a report published by the country’s “Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution”, which examined the threat posed by both groups alongside the likes of “Islamic terrorism” and foreign espionage.
“The report for the protection of the constitution shows that there are numerous threats from very different areas for our democracy and the security of the population,” said Thomas Haldenwang, the head of the German agency responsible for the report.
“The number of people has risen again in almost all extremist phenomena,” he continued, before going on to say that it was the job of “society as a whole” to “neutralise” these so-called “enemies of the constitution”.
Meanwhile, Nancy Faeser — Germany’s notoriously censorious interior minister who had previously written for a publication openly linked with Antifa — kept her focus on the “right-wing extremists”.
“Right-wing extremism remains the greatest extremist threat to our democracy,” the Antifa linked politician declared, before expressing her desire to “smash right-wing extremist networks”.
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