- Arthur Wagner was a leading politician from Alternative for Germany
BERLIN: Arthur Wagner, a leading politician from the Alternative for Germany (AfD), has converted to Islam and resigned from his position with the anti-Muslim party, according to state broadcaster Deutsche Welle.
Wagner, a leading member of the far-right party in the eastern German state of Brandenburg, stepped down for personal reasons, a party spokesperson confirmed. Wagner, who has been a member of the party since 2015, refused to comment to the Tagesspiegel newspaper that first broke the news of his conversion.
“That’s my private business,” he told the daily. On the party’s Brandenburg state committee, Wagner’s work focused on churches and faith communities, according to the state broadcaster. The AfD has campaigned against refugees and migrants and made history when it won 12.6 percent of the vote in federal elections in September 2017, entering the Bundestag for the first time.
The party became the third largest party in the Bundestag. The news sparked derision on social media, with many Twitter users pointing to the irony of Wagner converting to Islam after being a high-ranking member of a party that has railed against the presence of Muslims in Germany.
Emily Dische-Becker said: “Sharia picks up speed as politician from AfD converts to Islam.” The Alternative for Germany is known for its mantra that Islam doesn’t belong in Germany. Now a senior member of the party in Brandenburg has caused a mini-sensation by converting to Islam.
Originally founded in 2013 as a Eurosceptic party, the AfD took the lead as the most aggressive anti-refugee voice in the country while nearly a million asylum seekers arrived in Germany in 2015. In the party’s first bill since its electoral success in September, the AfD proposed amending Germany’s Residence Act by barring refugees from bringing their relatives from the war-ravaged countries they fled.
Earlier this month, Beatrix von Storch, the deputy leader of the AfD’s parliamentary group, was blocked from Facebook and Twitter after publishing Islamophobic posts criticising police for posting Arabic-language updates on New Year’s Eve.
She had written: “What the hell is happening in this country? Why is an official police site tweeting in Arabic?” The party has also sought to ban the construction of mosques in Germany. In March 2016, the party’s Bavaria branch published a policy statement calling for an end to the construction and operation of mosques in the region, the Deutsche Welle reported at the time.
In February of that year, then party leader Petry Frauke sparked outrage when she proclaimed that German border guards should use fire arms if necessary in order to prevent illegal border crossings by refugees and migrants. In April 2016, the AfD’s Alexander Gauland proclaimed that Germany must remain a Christian country and “Islam is a foreign entity.”
