The leader of Germany's far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party at federal level has said it will fight with all means against being under surveillance by the domestic intelligence agency.
"We will not let ourselves be destroyed as an alternative," party leader Tino Chrupalla said on Saturday in Stuttgart at the state party conference of the AfD in Baden-Württemberg.
The Baden-Württemberg branch of the party has recently been under observation by the agency, known officially as the Office for the Protection of the Constitution.
This is an attempt to discredit and disintegrate the AfD, Chrupalla told dpa. This is an absolute aberration in democratic Europe, he complained.
One would not stand idly by and watch the AfD being marginalized and muzzled, joint federal party leader Alice Weidel said at the opening of the party conference.
Weidel was state chairwoman in Baden-Württemberg for two and a half years but said on Saturday that she did not want to run again.
It was not unconstitutional to denounce the "failure of the established parties," Weidel said. It was even a duty to point out such failures, she added, saying the governing parties were moving further and further away from the principle of democracy.
She added they would defend themselves politically and legally against the surveillance.
