The far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) has generated a wave of indignation in the country after the distribution of thousands of fake airline tickets aimed at “illegal immigrants”, with the message that they were for his deportation. Specifically, these pamphlets have been deposited in the mailboxes of several neighborhoods in the city of Karlsruhe, in the southwest, characterized by housing a high concentration of migrant population.
The police have launched an investigation into the distribution of these pamphlets in the form of airline tickets, which are also available on the AfD website and include a QR code that directs to the site, under suspicion of “incitement to racial hatred.” In the brochures it is indicated as a destination “a safe country of origin” and the departure date is set flight for February 23, when the general elections will be held in Germany. Furthermore, in small print, the phrase appears: “your country is also beautiful.”
This campaign takes place in a context in which the party’s national leaders are pushing increasingly radical proposals to promote the mass deportation of immigrants, using the euphemistic term “re-immigration.” “Only reimmigration can save Germany,” is written on the counterfeit banknotes. During a training convention, held last weekend and in which Alice Weidel was nominated as a candidate to AfD chancellor, these pamphlets were also distributed, as reported by several German media outlets.
According to Guardianthese fake banknotes resemble those that the neo-Nazi party NPD distributed in 2013 in an attempt to dissuade migrant candidates from running for Parliament. It also reminds us of the propaganda that It was distributed in Nazi Germany and that he offered Jews “free tickets to Jerusalem… to never return,” recalls the British newspaper.
In total, between 20,000 and 30,000 pamphlets have been printed and delivered to mailboxes in the region and to election campaign posts, as confirmed by AfD federal deputy for Karlsruhe Marc Bernhard in an interview with the public broadcaster SWE. However, he added which has been a general distribution and that it was not directed at people “with foreign-sounding names.”
Oliver Schnell, a party councilor in Karlsruhe, has criticized that only the front part of the pamphlet is talked about and not the back, in which include the party’s political proposals and which, according to him, are totally legal. However, the campaign has been condemned by the mayor of Karlsruhe, Frank Mentrup, of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), who has indicated that “crosses a red line” and “threatens social cohesion”, because “it reinforces the feeling of insecurity and fear”, reports Europa Press.
Looking ahead to the February elections, called early after the implosion of the traffic light coalition that governed Germany, AfD occupies second place in the polls, with around 21% support. And despite the fact that it is behind the Christian Democrats of the CDU and that the traditional parties have announced that they will erect a cordon sanitaire against the extreme right, AfD could achieve historic results in the Bundestag.
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