The AfD has been classified as a suspicious object in Lower Saxony's constitutional protection report.
This emerges from the report for 2021 presented by Interior Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) on Thursday.
For example, the youth organization of the AfD had previously been classified as a suspicious object, but not the entire party.
Constitutional Protection President Bernhard Witthaut explained in a statement that the former wing members of the party had seeped into the party structures of the AfD with their ideas and objectives.
In addition, the party in the federal state has contacts, references and connections to right-wing extremist organizations and protagonists.
Right-wing extremism greatest threat to democracy
In addition to the AfD, there is another new object of suspicion in the report submitted by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, which is about the so-called anti-democratic and/or security-endangering delegitimization of the state.
These include corona deniers and conspiracy theorists.
Pistorius emphasized that right-wing extremism is still the greatest threat to democracy, despite a slight drop in the number of people.
According to this, 1730 people are assigned to right-wing extremism in Lower Saxony – 20 fewer than a year earlier.
The number of violent left-wing extremists in the state remained largely constant at 800.
The Salafist potential stagnated at around 900 people last year - the trend is currently slightly declining.