SPD MEP attacked while putting up posters

The MEP Matthias Ecke (SPD) has been attacked and seriously injured while putting up posters in the Striesen district of Dresden. While putting up election posters for the SPD late on Friday evening, four unidentified men attacked a 41-year-old man, police said on Saturday. He had to receive medical treatment in hospital. According to the SPD Saxony, it was their top candidate in the European elections, Matthias Ecke. He therefore requires surgery. There had been further attempts at intimidation, destruction of posters and insults at other poster teams.

The attack was an "unmistakable alarm signal to all people in this country", said the state party chairmen Henning Homann and Kathrin Michel according to the statement. "The series of attacks by thugs on poster teams of democratic parties is an attack on the foundations of our democracy. The violent action and intimidation of democrats is the tool of fascists." The seeds that the AfD and other right-wing extremists have sown are growing and their supporters are completely uninhibited. However, the SPD would not be silenced, emphasized Homann and Michel.

A few minutes earlier, according to the police, a group of four people attacked a 28-year-old Green Party campaign worker while he was putting up posters. The perpetrators punched and kicked him, and the 28-year-old was also injured. Based on the matching personal descriptions and the proximity in terms of time and location, the state security investigators assume that both cases involve the same perpetrators.