For years, the AfD-affiliated Desiderius Erasmus Foundation has been trying to get government funding. However, the foundation is not entitled to such funding, argues the German Institute for Human Rights in a legal opinion. She was unsuitable as a “carrier for political education”.
The German Institute for Human Rights calls for the AfD-affiliated Desiderius Erasmus Foundation to be excluded from state funding. The institute published an expert opinion according to which the use of state funds for “racist and right-wing extremist educational work” is not compatible with the Basic Law and the International Convention against Racial Discrimination (ICERD).
The use of state funds for the Desiderius Erasmus Foundation would “thwart the state’s educational mandate based on fundamental and human rights,” explained the Human Rights Institute. The foundation is “not only closely interwoven with actors of the so-called New Right”, but also spreads right-wing extremist ideas. “It is therefore unsuitable as a provider of political education,” the institute clarified.
Reference was also made to the self-image of the Desiderius Erasmus Foundation, according to which it shares the basic political orientation of the AfD. Analyzes were cited according to which “a national-völkisch orientation” runs through the policy papers of the party. Leaders and elected officials would also “represent racist and right-wing extremist positions and propagate violence to achieve their goals”. Thus, “the self-chosen brand core of the foundation” consists of its “connection to a racist and right-wing extremist party,” it said.
“A foundation that disseminates racist and right-wing extremist ideas or puts them into perspective should not be funded by the state,” the report clarifies, according to the Human Rights Institute. Even if foundations from parties repeatedly represented in the Bundestag could in principle expect to receive state funds from the federal government, according to the legal opinion the Desiderius Erasmus Foundation should be “excluded from state funding”, the institute demanded.
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