AGI – The socialist MEP and SPD leader in Saxony in the European elections, Matthias Ecke, was attacked and beaten yesterday afternoon in Dresden while he was putting up election posters. This was reported by the German police, according to which Ecke was attacked by four unknown men. The Saxony SPD said the 41-year-old politician will have to undergo an operation.
According to local media, which cites the police as a source, a few minutes before the attack on Ecke a group of four people had already attacked another 28-year-old Green volunteer, also while he was putting up posters. The attackers punched and kicked him, leaving him injured, and law enforcement suspects they are the same four people who attacked Ecke.
German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser condemned the “brutal act of violence” that seriously injured the Saxonian MEP and denounced attacks on other democrats during the election campaign. Faeser said she contacted Ecke personally and also spoke by phone with the Interior’s regional head, Armin Schuster.
“All the circumstances and background of this brutal act of violence must now be investigated in detail and the perpetrators identified,” Faeser said. “If a politically motivated attack against MP Matthias Ecke were confirmed a few weeks before the European elections, this serious act of violence would also be a serious attack against democracy, we are experiencing a new dimension of anti-democratic violence”, added the German minister, according to which “extremists and populists who fuel a growing climate of violence with outright verbal hostility against democratic politicians are co-responsible” for these types of attacks which occur with increasing frequency.
“The rule of law must react, and will do so, with a tough procedure and with further protective measures for the democratic forces of our country,” he concluded.
According to Spiegel, Ecke suffered broken facial bones and will undergo surgery on Monday. The Dresden police reported that four unknown persons on Friday evening around 10.30 pm first attacked a 28-year-old campaign worker for the Greens while he was putting up posters along Schandauer Strasse in Dresden, then “a few minutes later” a 41-year-old who was putting up posters for the SPD.
Police did not initially identify the victims by name, but the latter is believed to be Ecke. Both men were kicked and punched. The Greens wrote in a statement that two of their volunteer teams who were putting up the posters were “attacked and threatened”, and one party member suffered injuries, Spiegel reports.
A police spokesperson told the same newspaper that the alleged perpetrators were dressed in black and that witnesses said they belonged to the “right-wing spectrum”. They were male and estimated to be between 17 and 20 years old. Law enforcement is investigating for personal injury related to a politically motivated act.
