Magdeburg's migrant-run businesses stage shutdown protest as AfD tops polls before state election

Roughly 150 migrant-owned businesses in the German city of Magdeburg temporarily closed their doors on Wednesday in a coordinated strike against the Alternative for Germany (AfD), the anti-immigration party currently polling first ahead of next month's state election in Saxony-Anhalt.

The action centered on the area surrounding Hasselbachplatz, one of the city's central squares, where restaurants, barbershops and kiosks kept their shutters down from 10 am until 3 pm local time (0800-1300 GMT). Organizers said that some business owners who are not themselves migrants had also pledged to take part in the closure.

Alongside the strike, participants prepared to gather for a rally in front of the state parliament in Magdeburg later in the day, turning the commercial district's usual midweek bustle into a visible political statement less than two weeks before voters go to the polls.

Saeeid Saeeid of the Saxony-Anhalt refugee council, one of those involved in organizing the protest, framed the action as being about dignity rather than economics alone. "What is important to us is this: Nobody should have to prove through work or economic output that they belong to this society," he said.

Organizers described a groundswell of support among shopkeepers in the run-up to the strike. Saeeid spoke of "an extraordinary sense of solidarity" taking hold across the community, saying that entrepreneurs were encouraging each other to participate, standing together and voicing their opposition to racism and exclusion through peaceful means.

A co-organizer, who works as a social worker, said the point of the shutdown was to make residents confront what daily life in the city would look like if migrant-operated establishments vanished. She noted that people with migration backgrounds sustain care services, keep parcels moving through delivery networks, and form an essential part of the workforce in construction and industry across the region.

At the same time, she pushed back against the idea that migrants should be valued purely for their labor. "But we don't want to be seen only as workers, but as people with all their needs," she said.

According to the organizers, the strike was intended as a wake-up call directed at society at large, urging the public to examine more closely what the AfD's program would mean for the country and for communities like theirs.

The protest comes at a charged moment in regional politics. Saxony-Anhalt is scheduled to elect a new state parliament on September 6, and the campaign has been shadowed by the AfD's strong showing in opinion surveys.

The party's branch in the state currently sits atop the polls and is campaigning for an absolute majority — a result that would allow it to lead a state parliament's government for the first time in its history. Germany's domestic intelligence agency classifies the Saxony-Anhalt AfD as a far-right extremist organization, a designation that has done little so far to blunt its electoral momentum.

For the shopkeepers and activists behind Wednesday's closure, the message was twofold: a demonstration of how deeply migrants are woven into the economic fabric of eastern German cities, and a warning about the political direction they fear voters may choose on election day. With the vote now just over a week away, both supporters and opponents of the AfD will be watching whether actions like Magdeburg's strike resonate beyond the square where it began.