Germany: Protestors clash with police as rightwing party announces new leader

Police officers and a protestor have been injured during protests following the election of a new co-leader for the nationalist anti-immigrant party Alternative for Germany (AfD).

The newly elected leader, Alexander Gauland, was a historical revisionist who believed that history should be rewritten to sympathise with German victims of WWII.

The party’s official leader, Jorg Meuthen, kept his post, but was later joined by Gauland, who won more votes than the relatively more moderate candidate, Georg Pazderski.

Thousands of protestors who are against the party marched outside the conference centre where the leader was announced, holding placards reading “Hanover against Nazis” among other anti-racist and anti-AfD messages. Ten protestors were temporarily detained.

The conference was the first one held by the party after it entered parliament following September's elections, which gave them 12.6% of the vote.