400 arrested over clashes outside German right-wing populist AfD party congress

German riot police on Saturday arrested around 400 protesters trying to block access to the congress of the right-wing populist Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) political party, as clashes broke out between party members and left-wing activists in the German city of Stuttgart.

AfD party is expected to re-brand itself as openly anti-Islamic during the meeting.

Police, who surrounded several hundred protesters, fired pepper spray at crowds. Close to 1,000 officers were deployed.

The AfD wants to ban the burqa and outlaw minarets in Germany.

Despite the protest, that saw some people carrying sticks and iron bars and burning tyres, the conference began as planned on Saturday morning.

One demonstrator, Dominik Schmeiser, said: “We are united by our conviction that we cannot let the AfD go unchallenged, and that it is a party which is not only racist, but which is engaged in the politics of exclusion and social division. “We will not allow ourselves to be divided and we stand together for a compassionate society.”

Nearly 2,000 members of the AfD are registered to attend the conference. The party achieved gains in all three states taking part in regional elections last month, claiming almost a quarter of the vote in the relatively poor eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt.

It had campaigned against what it called Chancellor Angela Merkel’s “catastrophic” decision to accept a million migrants and refugees in 2015.

In Saturday’s conference, the party must agree a manifesto ahead of next year’s general election. Proposals include withdrawal from the euro and the reintroduction of conscription, but there are splits within the party, including between its less hardline wing and the leadership.

Speaking to the conference, deputy Alexander Gauland said the AfD was a party that “has arrived in society and which is here to stay, whether the consensus parties like it or not”.