Mayor Bans AfD Party Leader From Giving Speech After Her Controversial Newspaper Interview

The mayor of a town in Germany attempted to censor the leader of the surging Alternative for Germany (AfD) party — dubbed ‘Germany’s UKIP’ by some — by barring her from making a speech in his town following her recent comments about illegal immigrants.

AfD leader Frauke Petry (pictured) had been due to give a speech in Augsburg’s historic town hall on Friday this week, but the mayor of the city announced yesterday that he was banning her from using the building, reports Deutsche Welle.

As Breitbart London previously reported, the leader of the anti-mass migration Eurosceptic German political party told a newspaper last month that a border police officer “must stop illegal border crossings, and also make use of his firearm if necessary.”

Even though Mrs. Petry clarified that she did not want to see force used — “no policeman wants to fire on a refugee and I don’t want that either” — and stressed it was merely “the last resort”, political opponents have attempted to use the comments to their advantage. Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel, leader of the centre-left Social Democratic Party of Germany, even called for the AfD to be put under surveillance by the German government agency that tracks extremists.

Augsburg mayor Kurt Gribl, a member of the Merkel-allied Bavarian Christian Social Union party, yesterday ruled that Mrs. Petry’s comments were unconstitutional, and as a result she cannot be allowed to give a speech in the town hall.

Markus Bayerbach, one of two AfD council members in the town, said the party would “take action against the decision” by filing an urgent claim with a local judge. He said he hopes to have the ban overturned in time for Friday’s speech adding that it was “unacceptable that a democratically legitimised party should be barred from a space that is available to the other members of the democracy.”

For their part other city councillors have pledged to attend a competing event elsewhere in the same town hall if the mayor’s attempt at censorship is struck down.

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