German Police investigating AfD campaign distributing fake "deportation tickets" as the party radicalizes
German Police have started investigating the Alternative for Germany (AfD) over its campaign in Karlsruhe in the south of the country. Members of the local organization of the anti-immigration party sent fliers to mailboxes that seem to be airline ticket boarding passes and have the phrase "deportation ticket" written on them.
The departure date on the fake tickets is listed as 23 February, which is the date of the early parliamentary elections in which, according to polls, the AfD could become the second-strongest party in Germany. The fliers have sparked outrage there.
The AfD cell in Karlsruhe, which is in the southwest of Germany near the border with France, printed 30,000 of the fliers designed to look like boarding passes. The passenger name is listed as “illegal migrant”, the flight is listed as heading from Germany to the migrant’s “safe country of origin”.
The “flight” is listed as happening on election day and the time is listed as between 8:00 and 18:00, when polling places will be open. The fliers sparked outrage in Karlsruhe and politicians at the state level have also condemned them.
The Left party announced it will file a crime report over the fliers. The website of German news group RND reported that police are already investigating.
The fliers were put in the mailboxes of people of foreign origin, according to The Left. The AfD regional organization in Karlsruhe has rejected that, though, claiming that “deportation tickets” were sent to the mailboxes of all voters irrespective of their origin and were clearly marked as election fliers.
The Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA) has pointed out that it is unclear how many people received the materials in their mailboxes. According to Politico, the fliers in Karlsruhe are the first proof that the AfD has radicalized after its weekend congress.
Delegates to the congress in Riesa, Saxony adopted a program that seeks to significantly tighten Germany’s migration policy, among other things. Unlike the first draft, the final draft includes the expression “re-migration”, which in ultra-right circles is now being used to propose the mass deportation of migrants and people not considered ethnic German.
The flier also uses the term: “Only re-migration can save Germany”. Politico also reminds readers that similar fliers were used in 2011 and 2013 by the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD), which was inspired by similar fliers from the early 20th century.
“They probably were also putting up posters and had information stands, we should stop doing that, too,” the AfD Karlsruhe cell said. Early elections will be held in Germany in less than six weeks.
According to the most recent polls by the public opinion agency INSA, the AfD could win 22 % of the vote, three percentage points more than surveys attributed to it at the end of December. Just nine percentage points separates it from the conservative CDU/CSU, which is predicted to win the election.
