The chancellor’s appeal comes after four attackers brutally attacked a politician campaigning in eastern Germany.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called on people to unite against far-right activism after a politician was attacked while campaigning for the European parliamentary elections.
Matthias Ecke was seriously injured and taken to hospital for treatment after four assailants attacked him as he was putting up campaign posters in the eastern German city of Dresden on Friday night, police said.
The 41-year-old is a member of the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) and a current lawmaker in the European Parliament.
“Democracy is threatened by something like this, which is why shrugging your shoulders is never an option,” Scholz said on Saturday during a congress for the upcoming European elections in the German capital, Berlin. “We must unite against this.”
The fact that such things happen also has something to do with the speeches that are made and the moods that are created, said Scholz, referring to the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD).
Shortly before Ecke’s attack, what appeared to be the same group attacked a 28-year-old Greens activist who was also putting up posters, police said, although his injuries were not as serious.
“The constitutional state must and will respond to this with tough action and more protective measures for the democratic forces in our country,” German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said in a statement, saying the attack on Ecke was also a “ attack on democracy.”
‘Extremists and populists’
The President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, was one of many European politicians who sympathized with Ecke, saying in a post on X that she was “horrified by the cruel attack”.
At a national level, the number of attacks on politicians from parties represented in parliament has doubled since 2019, according to government data published in January.
Faeser said verbal hostility from extremists and populists toward democratic politicians was partly responsible for the rise in violence.
The German domestic intelligence agency BfV says far-right extremism is the biggest threat to German democracy.
A surge in support for the far-right AfD over the past year has pushed it to second place in national polls.
The AfD is particularly strong in the eastern states of Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg. Polls suggest he will come first in regional elections in all three in September.
Green Party politicians face the most attacks, according to government data, with attacks against them increasing sevenfold since 2019, to 1,219 last year. AfD politicians suffered 478 attacks and the SPD came in third, with 420.
Theresa Ertel, the Greens’ candidate in municipal elections in Thuringia this month, said she knew party members who no longer wanted to run due to the aggressive political atmosphere.
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
