A small town in Bavaria has banned Alternative for Germany (AfD) politician Björn Höcke from speaking in public at a local party convention tomorrow.
The ban was later given a green light from the Administrative Court of Bayreuth yesterday.
In December 2025, the administration of Seybothenreuth, a town of 1,300 people in northern Bavaria, had concluded a rental agreement with the right-wing AfD party, allowing it to use the town’s multi-purpose hall for a local party convention.
In early February, town officials learned that Björn Höcke, leader of AfD in the neighbouring state of Thuringia, would hold a speech at the event.
Höcke is a representative of the AfD’s rightist wing and often accused of spreading ethno-nationalist and extremist ideology. While German mainstream politics and media shun AfD as a whole, they portray Höcke as an especially “bad actor”.
As a reaction the Seybothenreuth city council – led by the Christian Social Union (CSU) – passed a “resolution for democracy and tolerance” on February 3.
The resolution said that while there was a constitutional right to free assembly, the town would still cancel the rental agreement with AfD.
The party, though, filed a suit against the town’s administration for undue cancellation. The town then changed course, instead amending the rental agreement unilaterally with an extra clause: That AfD had to make sure that Björn Höcke was not allowed to make his speech, effectively passing a speaking ban for the right-winger.
AfD tried to fight this ban with an urgent appeal to the Administrative Court in Bayreuth. The court, though, turned down the appeal yesterday, saying: “There is no entitlement to use a municipal public facility if the planned event is expected to feature content that approves of, glorifies or justifies National Socialist violence and arbitrary rule, or anti-Semitic content.
“In view of Björn Höcke’s right-wing extremist political orientation, his statements at previous public appearances, including in the recent past, the nature of an election campaign event and the topics of the speeches announced by the organiser, the court found there was a sufficiently high probability of such an expectation.
“It was therefore permissible to prevent at least one appearance by Björn Höcke as a guest speaker,” the court stated.
The legal clause on which it based its decision was only added to the Bavarian Municipal Code in 2025, entering into effect on January 1, 2026.
This is already the second time that a Bavarian court has allowed a speaking ban for Höcke under the new clause. Earlier in February, the South Bavarian town of Lindenberg issued a similar ban after it had also not been allowed to cancel a rental agreement with AfD for a party event due to the constitutional right of assembly.
A local AfD representative said the party had already challenged the court decisions at the Munich Administrative Court, adding: “We will continue to fight for freedom of opinion in Bavaria.”
Meanwhile, left-wingers have already announced an anti-AfD rally in Seybothenreuth during the party convention. Thousands of protesters are expected to attend.
