Red alert in Germany

Danilo Taino, Berlin correspondent for the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, comments on a report by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution which is currently making headlines in German newspapers. According to the report, Germany's Left Party has been infiltrated by communist extremists. "The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution has the task of monitoring ... movements that could represent a threat to the country's constitution: left and right-wing extremist organisations, Islamic extremists, and the so-called Church of Scientology. And this is precisely what the intelligence agency is doing. ... However the case of the Left Party is politically sensitive. We know that the Left Party is under surveillance - or in other words being spied on - in certain German states. ... But the fact is that according to the most recent surveys the party would win 14 percent of the votes in elections, making it Germany's third-strongest party. This raises the question of whether it is permissible to subject a political force of these dimensions to surveillance. ... Moreover, the spying is selective. Party leader Lafontaine is no longer under surveillance, but according to many this is only because they want to avoid making a political martyr of him."

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