“Violence has no place in a democracy”. Germans take to the streets against attacks on politicians

The election campaign before the European Parliament elections is intensifying in Germany. Dresden seems like a sack full of gunpowder at the moment. The Saxon capital near the Czech border experienced a violent Saturday.

The attackers first attacked the leader of the Social Democracy (SPD) and MEP Matthias Ecke when he was putting up his party’s posters. He was seriously injured and paramedics took him to the hospital, where he underwent surgery. Even before that, apparently the same group of four people allegedly attacked and injured a 28-year-old Green Party campaign worker, according to Der Spiegel.

A 17-year-old member of the group, as reported by the DPA agency, confessed to the attack on Ecke on Sunday. Police said the youth had no history of trouble with the law. She will investigate him at large, because according to her there is no danger that he will try to escape. Police are still looking for other attackers.

However, the violence did not end there. The city police was alerted to the attack on the stand of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the damaged election posters of various parties.

“Two 23-year-old women and a 28-year-old man attacked the information booth of the far-right party on the edge of the Neustadt district of Dresden on Saturday afternoon and damaged stands, posters and a table,” German newspaper Focus quoted the police as saying on Sunday evening.

The police caught all three rioters based on information from witnesses and handed over the case for further investigation. On Sunday night, she had another job: She intervened against a group of approximately twenty young people who damaged 21 posters of different parties – AfD, FDP, CDU and Die Linke.

“Together, as a democratic civil society, we take a stand – no one should fear for their safety because they are politically engaged or active in a party!” the organizers wrote in a joint Instagram post. “We will not allow this democracy to be destroyed by violence. Come say it out loud with us.”

Germans, who are not indifferent to violence, are to meet on Sunday afternoon either directly in Dresden at the Pohlandplatz or in Berlin at the Brandenburg Gate.

German politics has been very tumultuous lately. Tensions are growing between the far right and the rest of society. Since the beginning of the year, demonstrations against the AfD have intensified. The impetus for the protests, which involved hundreds of thousands to millions of people, was the revelation of a secret meeting of the extreme right in a villa near Wannsee near Potsdam.

Report List of News from the January demonstration:

According to the Deutsche Welle website, eyewitnesses of Saturday’s attack on Ecke claim that four attackers aged between 17 and 20 are responsible for the incident. They were described as wearing dark clothing and appearing to be far-right extremists.

The head of the Saxon SPD, Henning Homan, told the German Bild that the attack on Ecke was preceded by insults, including those with a homophobic theme. The tabloid was also the first to name the injuries suffered by the social democratic politician. However, no one else – the police or the party – has yet confirmed them. However, it is said to be a cut under the eye and a fractured cheekbone.

The campaign for the European elections will end in about a month. Germans will elect their 96 MEPs (the most of all EU member states) on June 9. Representatives of both the governing and opposition parties pointed out that their members were facing a wave of physical and verbal attacks. According to them, the police should strengthen the protection of public officials at election rallies.

What will the European elections be about?

Despite the growing predictions of a conflict between Russia and the North Atlantic Alliance, Europeans will vote not on the attitude towards Russia, but rather on climate policy and migration.