Left-wing campaign worker in Saxony threatened with machete

Five 14 to 20-year-old Left Party campaign workers have been threatened with a machete in Dohna (Saxon Switzerland-Eastern Ore Mountains district). The team was distributing advertising material to households on Wednesday when a stranger verbally threatened them, the police said. Shortly afterwards, the man turned up again and threatened the campaign workers with a machete. They filed a complaint on Thursday. State security has taken over the investigation.

"Words fail you. You think you've seen everything and then new, even more shocking events keep coming," said state party chairwoman Susanne Schaper. "How can it be that a group of election campaigners are threatened with a machete in broad daylight because they are making a democratic contribution?" If democratic competition is only possible with police protection, this should cause serious concern, said Schaper.

Attacks on campaigners

A team from the Pirate Party had already been attacked at the weekend, and campaign workers were threatened while putting up posters in Leipzig the week before. There had also been a number of attacks on campaign teams in Saxony before the European and local elections.

A brutal attack on MEP Matthias Ecke (SPD) in Dresden at the beginning of May caused quite a stir. He was knocked down at night by several young men and injured so badly that he had to be treated in hospital.