
Protesters drown out live interview with AfD leader Alice Weidel
The demonstrators, which positioned themselves across the River Spree from the televised set-up in Berlin's government quarter, sang songs, blew whistles and shouted anti-AfD slogans.
Weidel and her host, public broadcaster ARD's Markus Preiß, had to lean forward multiple times to understand the questions posed by the other.
Both Weidel and Preiß acknowledged the "difficult conditions," saying that at times it was almost impossible to understand each other.
"I've got an echo in my ear, now I can't hear anything," Weidel said at one point, before removing an earplug from her ear and continuing the interview.
The activist group, the Centre for Political Beauty, claimed responsibility for the rally, explaining that they equipped a bus with extremely powerful loudspeakers for the occasion.
The group have a history of planning disruptive protests, including recently hanging a banner up on the Maxim Gorki Theatre in Berlin depicting Weidel and Chancellor Friedrich Merz kissing.
Twenty-five people were involved in the protest, which took place with no arrests.
Weidel, later posting clips of the interview on X, claimed that the protest was organised by an NGO.
"By the way, this is what it looks like when the Tagesschau programme conducts a summer interview with the AfD in CDU-governed Berlin," Weidel wrote on X.
A spokesperson for the broadcaster that organised the interview, ARD, said that it would "drew conclusions" from the incident and "take precautions in the future."
"An undisturbed course of the interviews is in our interest and above all in the interest of the audience" the spokeswoman said in response to a DPA inquiry.
Politician Carsten Linnemann, a member of Merz's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) criticised the action, arguing that the protest drew favourable attention to the AfD.
"If you want to make the AfD strong, you should disturb such interviews," Linnemann told domestic media, adding he recommended counteracting the AfD in terms of their policies and content rather than arrange protest action.
Weidel's interview was part of a series of "summer interviews" typically given by the leaders of Germany's largest political parties to public broadcaster ARD.
The AfD are currently the second largest political force in Germany's parliament and in the polls, where latest figures show them achieving 25%, just behind the CDU with 27%.

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Euronews
19 hours ago
- Euronews
Ex-UK Labour leader Corbyn says he's starting a new left-wing party
The former leader of the UK Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn said on Thursday that he is forming a new left-leaning political party to advocate for "mass redistribution of wealth and power" and take on his former colleagues at the ballot box. The new political entity has a website — — but does not yet have a name. "It's your party," Corbyn said. "We're going to decide (a name) when we've had all the responses, and so far the response rate has been massive." Corbyn said he hoped the new party would have its inaugural conference in the autumn. Corbyn, 76, led Labour to election defeats in 2017 and 2019, but the veteran socialist campaigner remains popular with many grassroots supporters and the new party has the potential to further fragment British politics. The long-dominant Labour and Conservative parties now have challengers on both left and right, including the environmentalist Green Party and the hard-right Reform UK. Plans for a new party emerged earlier this month when lawmaker Zarah Sultana, who has been suspended from Labour for voting against the government, said she would 'co-lead the founding of a new party' with Corbyn. At the time, Corbyn did not confirm the news. On Thursday he denied the party launch had been messy, saying the process was "democratic, it's grassroots and it's open." A long-time supporter of Palestine and critic of Israel, Corbyn was suspended from Labour in 2020 after Britain's equalities watchdog found anti-Jewish prejudice had been allowed to spread within Labour while he was leader. He was suspended after failing to fully accept the findings, claiming opponents had exaggerated the scale of antisemitism in Labour for "political reasons." Corbyn was re-elected to Parliament last year as an independent. Prime Minister Keir Starmer succeeded Corbyn as Labour leader in 2020 and dragged the party back toward the political centre ground. He dropped Corbyn's opposition to Britain's nuclear weapons, strongly backed sending weapons to Ukraine and stressed the party's commitment to balancing the books. Starmer won a landslide election victory a year ago, but has struggled to maintain unity among Labour lawmakers as the government struggles to get a sluggish economy growing and invest in overstretched public services. He has been forced into a series of U-turns by his own lawmakers, including one on welfare reform that left his authority severely dented.


France 24
19 hours ago
- France 24
Zelensky approves new bill restoring 'independence' of anti-corruption bodies after protests
Protesters hold placards during a demonstration against a law that removes the independence of two key anti-corruption bodies in downtown Kyiv on July 23, 2025. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky approved draft legislation on Thursday that he said would restore the independence of the country's anti-corruption agencies, reversing course after an outburst of public criticism. Measures enacted earlier this week that established greater control by the prosecutor general, a political appointee, over the two bodies had fuelled rare wartime protests and had thrown Kyiv's EU bid into question. Zelensky said on X he had approved the draft for submission to parliament later in the day. To display this content from X (Twitter), you must enable advertisement tracking and audience measurement. Accept Manage my choices "It is important that we are maintaining unity. It is important that we are preserving independence. It is important that we respect the position of all Ukrainians," he said. Zelensky, whose image as a tireless leader of the three-year-old war against Russia's invasion has been tarnished by the controversy, said the text of the new bill is "well-balanced". He did not give further details, saying only that it "guarantees real strengthening of Ukraine's law enforcement system, independence of anti-corruption agencies, and reliable any Russian influence". Ukraine's Zelensky tries to limit backlash over law curbing anti-graft agencies To display this content from YouTube, you must enable advertisement tracking and audience measurement. Accept Manage my choices One of your browser extensions seems to be blocking the video player from loading. To watch this content, you may need to disable it on this site. Try again © France 24 04:49 On Monday, security forces arrested two anti-corruption officials on suspicion of ties to Russia and launched sweeping searches of other employees. Critics had decried the measures putting a Zelensky-appointed prosecutor in control over the anti-corruption agencies, saying they went too far and looked like political pressure against the agencies. Opposition lawmakers had collected enough signatures to register their own legislation to revoke the restrictive measures, which had been fast-tracked with help from Zelensky's ruling party. It was not immediately clear how soon parliament, which was meant to start its summer holiday this week, would consider either bill. The European officials expressed strong criticism over changes curbing the authority of the anti-corruption bodies and on Thursday welcomed an earlier pledge by Zelensky to retain their independence. (FRANCE 24 with Reuters)


France 24
21 hours ago
- France 24
ICC convicts pair over Central Africa war crimes
Ex-sports minister Patrice-Edouard Ngaissona was a senior leader of mainly Christian militias as the country slid into civil war, while Alfred Yekatom, a former MP, commanded them on the ground. The ICC sentenced Yekatom to 15 years behind bars for 20 war crimes and crimes against humanity including murder and torture. Ngaissona received a sentence of 12 years for 28 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Their militia, known as anti-Balaka or "anti-machete", were formed as vigilante self-defence groups after mainly Muslim rebels called the Seleka stormed the capital Bangui and removed then-president Francois Bozize, a Christian. Presiding judge Bertram Schmitt read harrowing details of the violence committed by the militia against suspected Seleka Muslims. Yekatom's men tortured one suspect by cutting off his fingers, toes, and one ear. This man's body was never found. Others were killed and then mutilated. Appearing in court dressed in a light brown suit and waistcoat, white shirt, and dark tie, Yekatom listened impassively as the judge read out the verdict. Dressed in a bright blue jacket, Ngaissona nodded to the judge as his sentence was delivered. The court found Yekatom not guilty of conscripting child soldiers and acquitted Ngaissona of the charge of rape. Both men had pleaded not guilty to all charges. Yekatom was extradited to The Hague in late 2018, after being arrested in the CAR for firing his gun in parliament. Ngaissona was arrested in France in December 2018 and extradited to The Hague. At the time he was head of the CAR football association and a board member of the Confederation of African Football (CAF). The Central African Republic is among the poorest nations in the world and has endured a succession of civil wars and authoritarian governments since independence in 1960. Violence has subsided in recent years but fighting occasionally erupts in remote regions between rebels and the national army, which is backed by Russian mercenaries and Rwandan troops.