Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.
Read more
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is facing criticism after slamming Germany for giving “its spy agency new powers to surveil the opposition.”
Rubio lashed out on Friday following the decision by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency to classify the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) as a “proven right-wing extremist organization.”
“That’s not democracy—it’s tyranny in disguise,” the secretary wrote on X. “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. Germany should reverse course.”
Within hours, the German foreign office responded, writing on Elon Musk’s social media platform that “This is democracy. This decision is the result of a thorough & independent investigation to protect our Constitution & the rule of law.”
“It is independent courts that will have the final say. We have learnt from our history that rightwing extremism needs to be stopped,” the office added.
“Nothing to see here—just the Secretary of State attacking one of our strongest allies, falsely accusing it of ‘tyranny in disguise,’ all in defense of a far-right, Holocaust-denying, pro-Putin party. This is INSANE,” the group Republicans against Trump wrote.
open image in gallery
Wolfgang Ischinger, a former German Ambassador to the United States between 2001 and 2006, asked: “You are aware a new German govt has been elected which will assume power next week, and which has already announced much tougher Immigration rules?”
The conservative Christian Democratic Party, which ex-Chancellor Angela Merkel formerly led, came out victorious in the February elections, and incoming Chancellor Friedrich Merz is set to form a government with the Social Democrats, having joined with other parties to commit to blocking the AfD from power.
The leaders of the AfD, which tops some polls, have trivialized the Holocaust, used Nazi slogans, and derided foreigners and immigrants.
The decision by the German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution does give German authorities more power to conduct oversight and surveillance of the AfD. Previously, some state-level branches of the party have received the label, including in Saxony and Thuringia. However, this is the first time in modern German history that a political party represented across the country on the federal level has been classified as extremist, Politico noted.
In the February federal elections, the AfD won 152 of the 630 parliamentary seats and received 20.8 percent of the vote.
Following a three-year probe, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution published a 1,000-page report, pointing to breaches of constitutional principles such as human dignity and the rule of law.
President Donald Trump and his allies have mostly been backing the AfD, whose co-leader, Alice Weidel, was invited to attend Trump’s second inauguration. Meanwhile, Musk has continually supported the party, speaking at a campaign event for them in January of this year.
open image in gallery
“Banning the centrist AfD, Germany’s most popular party, would be an extreme attack on democracy,” he wrote on X on Friday.
One AfD leader, Stephan Brandner, told the German news agency D.P.A., “This decision by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution is complete nonsense in terms of substance, has nothing to do with law and justice, and is purely political in the fight between the cartel parties against the AfD.”
