Europeans: German SPD party candidate seriously injured during campaign | Germany

A candidate for the European elections for the German Social Democratic Party (SPD), Matthias Ecke, was attacked and seriously injured on Friday night while hanging campaign posters in the city of Dresden.

The information was provided by Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s party, which launched the official campaign for the European elections last week. Authorities have already revealed that four unknown people beat the 41-year-old politician.

According to information collected by the German newspaper TagesspiegelEcke was reportedly alone at the time of the attack and still remains in the hospital.

The SPD in the state of Saxony is reinforcing security measures preventing its members from carrying out campaign actions alone from now on. They should always be in groups of four or five to be able to react to potential attacks. Furthermore, the police will be informed in advance about the posting of posters.

The Minister of the Interior, Nancy Faeser, from the SPD, has already written on the social network X (formerly Twitter) that, if it is proven that the aggression was politically motivated, this will represent “a major attack on democracy.”

“The attack by MEP Ecke is an unequivocal alarm signal for everyone in this country. Our democratic values ​​are under attack”, revealed the presidents of the SPD of Saxony Henning Homann and Kathrin Michel, quoted by Tagesspiegel.

The federal presidents of the SPD, Saskia Esken and Lars Klingbeil, also condemned the act of violence in a statement.

“This attack affects our entire party. It is an attack on all electoral activists who passionately support our democracy and the rule of law”, they highlighted.

According to the police, a group of four people had attacked, minutes before, a 28-year-old member of the Greens, while he was putting up posters. The young man was injured after being kicked. Based on the corresponding descriptions and the temporal and local proximity, investigators believe that the perpetrators are the same in both cases.