AFD attacked for visit to ‘prove’ Syria is safe place for migrants
ANGELA MERKEL and other leading German politicians have criticised the far-right Alternative for Germany (AFD) party for a “disgusting” trip to Syria designed to prove the country is safe enough to send home migrants.
The trip has come under scrutiny as the AFD members met officials close to Bashar al-assad, the Syrian president.
“Whoever pays court to this regime disqualifies themselves,” Steffen Seibert, Mrs Merkel’s spokesman, said.
The anti-immigration AFD, now Germany’s biggest opposition party, has been pushing to declare Syria a safe country, and in November proposed to send back half a million Syrian refugees currently living in Germany.
AFD members hope the fact-finding mission will boost their efforts, saying in a statement that they want to get “an understanding” of the humanitarian situation on the ground.
While there, the group has met with Grand Mufti Ahmad Hassoun, the Assad loyalist who previously threatened that Syria would send suicide bombers to Europe if attacked. On Tuesday, they posed for photographs with allies of Mr Assad and took photos of women in Damascus. “You hardly see any military. You see adverts for phones and televisions. Normal daily life,” Christian Blex, the trip’s leader, said.
Politicians from across the political spectrum have criticised the journey. “While bombs and poison gas are used by dictator Assad, [AFD politicians are] without scruples, smiling for cameras and meeting with the culprit clique,” Michael Brand, a CDU politician, said.
He added that it was “disgusting” that the party is “dragging the good name of our country through the dirt, and mocking victims of a brutal war”.
Questions have also been raised over the financing of the journey. The AFD has insisted it is a “private” trip, but Rolf Mützenich, an SPD politician, said the council of elders, which manages the internal affairs of the Bundestag, will have to examine if that is the case.
The AFD group includes Frank Pasemann, Jürgen Pohl, Udo Hemmelgarn and Harald Weyel, who are Bundestag MPS; and Christian Blex and Thomas Röckemann, regional MPS from the western state of North Rhine-westphalia. The group said it plans to visit Homs and Aleppo next.