The state association of the AfD Baden-Württemberg is holding a party conference in Offenburg. Hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets because of the event. There are clashes with the police. Several people are injured.
Riots broke out in Offenburg, Baden, during a protest against the AfD state party conference. According to the police, five people were injured – three officers and two participants. Three of them, a police officer and the two participants, were examined at the hospital. In the meantime, there was a fire at one point – 20 officers were slightly injured.
The AfD Baden-Württemberg gathered on Saturday in the Baden city with several hundred members for their state party conference. The meeting is scheduled to end this Sunday. As the police reported late in the evening, they determined the identity of over 400 participants in an unpeaceful demonstration. In more than 200 cases there was a place reference. Several suspects have been identified. The allegations are serious breach of the peace, resistance to law enforcement officials and bodily harm.
Participants in the demonstration had rejected any offers of cooperation, the police said. She also accused participants of attacking officials. There is now a special investigative team. During the riots, a person is said to have sprayed several police officers with a fire extinguisher. As a dpa reporter reported, officials used batons against demonstrators to stop the protest march.
At the same time, the participants were asked via loudspeaker to remain peaceful. A red banner read: “No place for the AfD.” According to the police, around 1,200 people had previously protested peacefully in the city center and at the exhibition center where the AfD meeting took place.
The AfD in the southwest postponed a major change in the statutes to the upcoming party congress due to internal resistance. This should take place in the coming year, as co-state chairman Emil Sänze said in passing. The project for the new statutes involves, among other things, introducing an additional control body in the state association.
The topic caused sometimes chaotic debates at the meeting. Sänze admitted that not all rifts had been overcome in the party. For years, a power struggle raged among the AfD MPs in the south-west between moderate forces and supporters of the right-wing fringe.
Since July, the AfD state association has been observed by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution as a suspected right-wing extremist. The secret service can thus examine the right-wing populists more closely and, under strict conditions, observe members, monitor phones and recruit informants.
The party congress adopted several resolutions, including on the Ukraine war. “We demand the immediate cessation of all arms deliveries to the warring parties,” reads the resolution presented at the meeting. The goal is a “just peace” that takes the security interests of Ukraine and Russia into account. At the federal level, AfD co-head of the parliamentary group Tino Chrupalla had already called for German arms deliveries to stay out of the war.
