Man arrested for attack on Berlin politician – DW – May 8, 2024

The Berlin Minister for Economic Affairs, Energy and Enterprises, Franziska Giffey from Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s SPD parliamentary group, was injured on Tuesday in an attack on a library in the Berlin district of Rudow.

Giffey, a former mayor of Berlin and former federal minister, “briefly went to the hospital for outpatient treatment because of headaches and neck pain,” police said The Berlin public prosecutor’s office announced this in a statement.

What we know about the incident

The attacker suddenly “attacked Giffey from behind with a bag filled with hard contents and hit her on the head and neck” in a library on Tuesday afternoon, the police said.

The Berlin public prosecutor’s office announced on Wednesday that a 74-year-old man had been temporarily arrested and that an investigation into the motive for the crime had been initiated suspected perpetrators Was ongoing.

The man is said to have done it already The police are aware of cases involving state security and hate crimes.

Prosecutors will now consider whether the person should be committed to psychiatric treatment. There were also plans to search his whereabouts before the attack.

The defendant was due to appear before an investigating judge on Wednesday.

The politician herself later said on social media: “After the initial shock, I can say that I’m fine.”

But in her Instagram post, Giffey condemned a “fair game culture in which politically active and committed people in our country are increasingly exposed to supposedly justified and acceptable attacks.”

“They are a transgression that we as a society must resolutely confront,” she wrote.

Pattern of attacks on politicians

In another incident on Tuesday, a 47-year-old Green Party politician in the eastern city of Dresden was threatened and spat on as she hung campaign posters.

A DW reporting team was on site and recorded the incident.

A 34-year-old man and a 24-year-old woman, both German citizens, are being investigated for their alleged involvement, the police said.

They were reportedly among a group of people standing nearby as the politician began her work. This group is also under investigation after they were allegedly heard using an illegal Nazi slogan.

The attacks come just days after attacks on MEP Matthias Ecke and a Green Party campaign worker.

Ecke, a member of the European Parliament for Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s SPD, was attacked by four attackers as he put up EU election posters in Dresden on Friday evening, according to the police.

Politicians condemn “spiral of violence”

Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, warned of the threat to democracy posed by such incidents and demanded that perpetrators face the full legal consequences for their actions.

In a speech to the Christian Democrats in Berlin, she said: “We must protect everyone who works for our democratic society and our country from attacks – regardless of which party they belong to, whether privately, in the election campaign or in practice.” their duties, day and night.

Berlin Sports Minister Iris Spranger strongly condemned the attack “on Franziska Giffey and other politicians and election workers, all of whom are committed to a democratic debate.”

“State and federal police are doing everything they can to protect politicians. The Conference of Interior Ministers agreed yesterday in the special session that democracy must be protected more effectively against hate speech and misinformation.”

“Protecting individuals from such attacks under criminal law also serves to protect democracy itself.”

Green Party co-leader Ricarda Lang wrote on

jsi,tj/nm (AFP, dpa)

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