German centre-left MEP candidate attacked in Dresden

4 months ago 19

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News Based on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.

Matthias Ecke MEP addressing the European Parliament plenary [Source: European Parliament]

On Saturday (4 May), the lead candidate of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD, S&D) in Saxony, Matthias Ecke, was beaten by a group of people in Dresden, leaving him with broken bones and unresponsive.

Ecke was hanging posters for the upcoming local and EU elections in the city of Dresden when “three or four strangers suddenly appeared, insulted the poster team and then suddenly began to brutally beat him up”, the head of the regional branch of the SPD Henning Homan told German newspaper Bild.

He expects that the MEP candidate will remain in hospital for the next week.

That same week, in the city of Essen, on the other side of the country, two Green politicians were attacked after a party event on Thursday (2 May) evening.

According to the police in Saxony quoted by Bild, there have “already been 112 crimes in connection with [local or European] elections in 2024” in the region.

According to Spain’s S&D member party who posted in solidarity, Ecke was beaten up “by right-wing extremists”.

Germany’s minister for Economy and climate Robert Habeck (Green) condemned the attacks, plural. “They are attacks on our democracy,” he wrote on social media X.

A message similarly expressed by Ecke’s SPD colleague in the European Parliament Katarina Barley, lead candidate for the party at the national level.

The President of the European Parliament Robert Metsola tweeted in German, asking that “those responsible must be brought to justice”.

[Edited by Aurélie Pugnet]