Berlin, Feb 7 (EFE). – Far-right German politician Björn Höcke, considered the leader of the most extremist wing of the Alternative for (AfD) party, will be charged with inciting ethnic hatred, German media reported Wednesday.
The party’s leader in the eastern state of Thuringia will have to answer to the regional court of Mühlhausen, although the date for the first hearing has not been set.
Höcke will be tried for a social media post from 2022, in which he stated, about a violent incident in a German city, that “the perpetrator probably has a psychiatric disorder and suffers from an illness widespread among immigrants that makes them shout ‘Allahu Akbar.'”
This alleged illness, “distorts their perception in a way that they believe their ‘infidel’ hosts are living lives unworthy of being lived,” the message continued.
The far-right leader has another case pending before the Halle regional court for using banners contrary to the Constitution after using a banned slogan of the Sturmabteilung, a Nazi paramilitary organization, at a rally in 2021.
The AfD is currently in second place in federal polls, behind the Christian Democrats and ahead of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats.
In the eastern regions of Saxony, Thuringia, and Brandenburg, where regional elections are on Sept. 1, the far-right party could emerge as the leading political force with about a third of the vote.
Höcke, one of the AfD’s most radical faces and former leader of the faction known as “The Wing” – which disbanded after being placed under surveillance by authorities for its extremist tendencies – is expected to be the party’s candidate for Thuringia’s state government.
The AfD in Thuringia has been classified as a right-wing extremist by the State Office for the Protection of the Constitution and has been under surveillance for almost three years.EFE
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