US DESIGNATION AIMS TO NETWORK ANTI-FASCIST TRIALS IN GERMANY AND HUNGARY BY CRIMINAL ASSOCIATION ~ Josie Ó Súileabháin ~ US President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubin recently announced the long-awaited criminalisation of anti-fascism by designating “Antifa” a domestic terrorist organisation under National Security Presidential Memorandum-7 (NSPM-7) and four groups in Europe labelled by the State Department as “specially designated global terrorists” and “foreign terrorist organisations.” As part of the Trump Administration’s “initiative to disrupt self-described “anti-fascism” networks, entities and organisations,” ‘Antifa-Ost’ (Antifa-East) was named with three other European groups as an organisation that was perceived as a threat to the United States by “conspiring to undermine the foundations of western civilisation through their brutal attacks.” Despite this show of force, presidential memorandums do not hold the power to designate ‘domestic terrorist organisations’ and, as it turns out, ‘Antifa’ is not an organisation at all. However, “a foreign organisation can be designated and there is almost no due process,” says Shane Kadidical from the Centre of Constitutional Rights. “Then, you go after the U.S. groups for supposedly coordinating their political messages with the messages of foreign groups.” Perhaps intentionally missing the point that anti-fascist groups are autonomous, Antifa-East also does not exist as an organisation. The State Department is in fact referring to the political repression in Hungary and Germany of a group of autonomous anti-fascists known in the German mainstream media as the “Hammerbande” (Hammer gang), accused of assaulting neo-Nazis and fascists in Germany between 2018-2020. In 2023, Victor Orbán launched a European wide hunt for anti-fascists who he claimed attacked those who attended Budapest’s yearly gathering of neo-Nazis and paramilitaries from across Europe. The ‘Day of Honor’ is a commemoration of the final resistance of the Waffen-SS against the Soviet Union in Budapest at the end of the second world war. Despite the event is banned by Hungarian authorities, the far-right continue to meet on February 11. Neo*Nazi march in Berlin, 1998 By weaponising the European Arrest Warrant, Orbán attempted to extradite multiple anti-fascists from Italy and Germany to face trial in Hungary for ‘criminal association’ as defined under Hungarian law (article 459) as “a group that consists of at least three persons, is established for a longer period of time… and operates in a conspiratorial manner to commit international criminal offences.” While most of the conditions for this law, including “organised hierarchically” do not apply to these anti-fascists, the only problem for Orbán was the “longer period of time” aspect which could not be proven based on the events of February 11. Fortunately for this dictator, he could always fall back on the authoritarian repression of a European federal republic. In the same year that Orbán launched his hunt for anti-fascists, a German court sentenced Lina E. and three other co-defendants to five years in prison each for assault and membership of a criminal gang. The attacks took place in Saxony and Thuringia in east Germany, and involved assaults on Enrico Böhm, a publisher and distributor of far-right literature and Leon R., a barkeeper of the far-right bar Bull’s Eye. After Hungary issued a European Arrest Warrant for Maja T. to face trial, Germany followed with a national arrest warrant. Now Orbán had his ‘evidence’ for criminal organisation based on the required “longer period of time” clause, as he could refer to the ‘Dresden left extremist trials’ to network anti-fascists across Europe. Maja was extradited to Hungary and went on hunger strike for 40 days in custody, where they remain in solitary confinement. Zaid is one of the only defendants to be released on bail in Nuremberg, although he has to report to a police station three times a week. As Zaid is Syrian and holds no citizenship in Germany, he faces the threat of deportation. Six more defendants were named by the prosecutor in Dusseldorf for charges like “attempted murder” and “membership in a criminal organisation.” Those who Orbán accuses of being part of a criminal organisation that “slapped peaceful people in the streets of Budapest with iron bars” are identified because they were in the crowd of anti-fascists, rather than specifically committing a crime. “All such investigate activity is absolutely absent in the trial file,” says Eugonio Losco, an Italian defense lawyer for one of the accused. “So there is an association because in Germany there were some similar events, and in Hungary there were some Germans. There is not much more,” Losco says. On December 13, Lina E was alleged to have stolen two hammers in a Leipzig hardware store. On the same night, Leon claims he was attacked for the second time as he was driving home from the Bull’s Eye bar. He told police that the assailants used hammers and that one of them had a female voice. It is on the testimony of a fascist that Lina E was sentenced to more than five years in prison.  “This spiral of radicalization and violence must not be allowed to continue,” former German interior minister Nancy Fraeser said, following the court verdict of Lina E. Yet both Leon R and Enrico Böhm have since been convicted of criminal association to the right-wing groups they belong to. Like in Hungary, the state is using far-right criminals to maintain its monopoly on violence. Alongside the seemingly arbitrary rounding up of political opponents are show trials and media narratives that seek to portray anti-fascism as a “left-wing extremism” and a threat to society. The role of intelligence agencies in confirming this ‘threat’ should not be understated.  Following the sentencing of Lina E, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) claimed that left-wing violence had risen from 700 to 10,300 incidents between 2020-21, contradicting Federal Police (BKA) statistics that have shown a drop of 31% in violence attributed to the left. In contrast, right-wing extremism rose by 16% between 2021-22. When debating the use of violence in our resistance to the far-right, we remember those who have been killed on the streets for confronting fascism, like the east German printer Silvio Meier. On Friday, anti-fascists marched down Silvio-Meier-Straße in Berlin for the memory of the Silvio, stabbed in the chest by 17-year-old youth fascist Sandro S. after a confrontation. He died of his injuries on an u-Bahn platform 33 years ago. Victims of fascist violence. Public domain Is the recent designation of anti-fascism a ‘strategy of tension’ where state actors and the far-right work together to protect their interests and oppose common enemies? What has become known as the Budapest Complex is perfect for a US Administration seeking control over the wide-spread domestic grassroots resistance against it’s own far-right policies. Like all ‘anti-terrorism’ state legislation, the state maintains power through the ‘crime of association’. Where will this authoritarian repression lead? In 1969, the anarchist Giuseppe Pinelli was thrown out of a police station window in Milan and died from his injuries. He was interrogated on his role in the Piazza Fontana bombings that at the time were falsely attributed to Italian anarchists. In 2004, it was proven to be the fascist paramilitary organisation Ordine Nuovo found responsible for the attack.  The threat of far-right violence is ever present in both our communities and in the decaying halls of power. Its popularity is rising among the youth in Germany with the Deutsche Jugend Voran (DJV) and ‘Generation Deutschland’, the second attempt of the populist far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) in creating a youth party. Never mind the blundering of ageing fascist tyrants, it is this future we must confront. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Top photo: White House, 7 November 2025   The post ‘Terror’ as a strategy of tension appeared first on Freedom News.