MEP Matthias Ecke attacked, Chancellor Olaf Scholz denounces a “threat to democracy”

Matthias Ecke, German MEP from the ruling Social Democratic Party (SPD), was seriously injured by unknown assailants who attacked him while he was putting up election posters, the police and the Minister of Justice announced on Saturday, May 4. interior, which warned of a rise in “undemocratic violence”.

The attack suffered Friday evening in Dresden, in eastern Germany, by the MEP, also head of the SPD list in the Saxony region for the European elections in June, is not the first targeting the latter month of German political representatives.

According to the regional police, the elected official, aged 41, was ” struck “ by four unknown persons while putting up campaign posters for the party of Chancellor Olaf Scholz. He had to “receive medical care in hospital”, adds the press release. Mr. Ecke was “seriously injured and requires surgery”declared the SPD federation of Saxony.

Olaf Scholz condemns the attack

The police add that before this attack, a man putting up posters for the Green party, in the same street, was also beaten “with punches and kicks”. Investigators say they suspect the same group of attackers, particularly because “concordance in the description” suspects. The investigation was entrusted to the state protection services, meaning that the police are investigating the possibility of politically motivated violence.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz strongly condemned the attack, saying he was concerned about the increase in such violence which “threaten” democracy. “We must say that we must never resign ourselves to such acts of violence”declared Mr. Scholz at a congress of European socialist parties in Berlin. “Democracy is threatened by these kinds of acts. »

“If a politically motivated attack (…) is confirmed a few weeks before the European elections, this serious act of violence also constitutes a serious attack on democracy”reacted the Minister of the Interior, Nancy Faeser, in a press release.

Considering that it is a “new dimension of anti-democratic violence”the minister invokes the responsibility of “extremists and populists, who fuel a climate of increasing violence through totally disproportionate verbal attacks”.

“The seeds sown by the AfD are germinating”

SPD officials in Saxony blamed the role of the far-right AfD party, which has seen strong growth in the polls over the past year. “The seeds sown by the AfD and other right-wing extremists are germinating. Their supporters are now completely uninhibited and clearly view us Democrats as game. deplored Henning Homann and Kathrin Michel, regional leaders of the party.

Thursday evening, two elected officials from the Greens, a party which governs with the SPD, were attacked in Essen, in western Germany, and one of them was hit in the face, according to the police.

Last Saturday, a few dozen demonstrators attacked the vice-president of the Bundestag Katrin Göring-Eckardt, an elected environmentalist, after a festive event in eastern Germany. His car was blocked and police reinforcements had to be called to allow him to leave the scene.