Johanna Wanka, the former education minister, was reprimanded for responding to an AfD slogan at a Berlin protest rally in 2015 that read: “Red card for Merkel – asylum needs borders.”
Ms Wanka issued the statement on the ministry’s website, at the height of the 2015 refugee crisis, saying the red card should be shown to the AfD, not Merkel.
It said: “Bjoern Hoecke and other party spokespeople are contributing to social radicalisation.
“Right-wing extremists who openly incite hatred and violence, like the head of (anti-Islam grassroots movement) PEGIDA boss Lutz Bachmann, thus receive intolerable support.”
However, Germany’s top court ruled today that Ms Wanka had “violated the AfD’s right to equal opportunities of political parties” as her remarks may have negatively affected voters’ view of the party.
The ruling underscores the challenges facing politicians trying to take on the AfD, which won nearly 13 percent in a September 24 election at the expense of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives and the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD).
Mr Hoecke, a senior member of the AfD, has described the Holocaust memorial in Berlin as a “monument of shame” and wants German history books on the Nazi era to be rewritten.
While the government is allowed to explain its actions in response to criticism, it said, state organs are not allowed to react to “unobjective and defamatory attacks” in the same way.
AfD leaders welcomed the decision, saying it was a clear signal to the government not to misuse taxpayers’ money for “political agitation against the opposition”.
AfD leader Alexander Gauland said: ”Thank goodness there are judges in Karlsruhe.”
Since the election, the AfD – originally set up in 2013 as an anti-euro party but which has morphed into a nationalist party opposed to immigration – has gained in polls.
An INSA poll on Tuesday put the AfD on 16 percent, just ahead of the SPD.
The main parties are trying to counter the AfD’s positions with facts and arguments, but checks and balances embedded in Germany’s political system since World War Two mean they have to respect the AfD’s legitimacy in parliament.
The AfD will become the main opposition party if SPD rank-and-file members, voting in a postal ballot, endorse a new coalition government between their party and Merkel’s conservatives.
The mainstream parties have always said they would not enter a coalition with the AfD. On Tuesday the conservative bloc agreed unanimously not to work on or to submit motions together with the AfD during this legislative period.
The AfD will be entitled to head some parliamentary committees, including the powerful budget committee.