In Dresden, an SPD candidate was seriously injured during the campaign for the European elections

Matthias Ecke, the leader of the German Social Democracy (SPD) candidate in Saxony for the European elections, was attacked by unknown perpetrators in Dresden on Friday evening and seriously injured. According to the DPA agency, the police informed about this today.

The attack happened when Ecke was putting up his party’s election posters. Paramedics took him to the hospital, where he underwent surgery.

Just a few minutes before MEP Ecke was assaulted, a group of four also attacked a Green Party activist who, like Ecke, was hanging up promotional materials. The thugs beat and kicked him, he is injured. Investigators assume that the same perpetrators are responsible for both incidents.

The attacks were condemned by politicians from various parties.

Ecke’s party colleague and Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said that if political motives for the attack were confirmed, it would be a “severe attack on democracy”. According to her, the responsibility for it would be borne by extremists and populists, who are increasingly fueling the atmosphere of violence with their verbal hostility towards democratic politicians. She promised a tough procedure, which she wants to discuss with the interior ministers of the individual federal states.

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SPD leaders in Saxony, Henning Homann and Katrhin Michelová, described violent acts against democratic politicians as a tool used by fascists.

“The seeds sown by the (anti-immigration – ČTK note) Alternative for Germany and other right-wing extremists are sprouting, their followers have no inhibitions,” they said in a joint statement.

Voters in Germany will decide on their next representatives in the European Parliament on June 9. Representatives of both the governing and opposition parties warned that their members were facing a wave of physical and verbal attacks and called on the police to strengthen the protection of politicians at election rallies, writes the AP agency.