A member of a far-right German party was stabbed in another attack on a politician

A member of a far-right party in Germany was stabbed in the southwestern city of Mannheim, the German news agency reports. dpa was reported on Wednesday, just days after a police officer was killed and five other people injured in a knife attack in the same city.

DPA reported that a candidate from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party caught someone trying to tear down an election poster on Tuesday evening. When he confronted the person, he was attacked with a knife. DPA reported that the candidate was still in hospital with non-life-threatening cuts. The candidate, who was campaigning on Sunday in Baden-Württemberg, where Mannheim is located, was not identified. The attacker was arrested. dpa reported.

“We are shocked and dismayed,” AfD state chairman Markus Frohnmaier told dpa.

The Mannheim police confirmed that an incident had occurred on Tuesday evening and said that the arrested suspect had subsequently been taken to a psychiatric clinic.

also read | Knife attack in Mannheim: Police injure several people

“According to the current state of the investigation, there is no concrete evidence that the suspect realized during the attack that the injured person was an AfD politician,” investigators said on Wednesday. dpa.

On Friday, a 25-year-old Afghan stabbed several members of a group that describes itself as opponents of “political Islam.”

The Pax Europa group describes itself as an organization that informs the public about the dangers posed by the “increasing spread and influence of political Islam.” Michael Stürzenberger, an anti-Islamist activist who is a leading figure in the group and has spoken at its events, was among those injured.

The attacker was still in hospital. Tuesday’s attack is the latest in a series of attacks on politicians in the country that have sparked concerns about a rise in political violence in Germany.

Last month, Franziska Giffey, Berlin’s top economic official, former mayor and ex-federal minister, was attacked at an event at a local library by a man who approached her from behind and hit her with a bag containing a hard object, police said.

A week earlier, a candidate from the party Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz was beaten up during the election campaign for the European elections this week in Dresden and had to undergo surgery.

Government and opposition parties said their members and supporters had been subjected to a wave of physical and verbal attacks in recent months and called on police to step up protection for politicians and election rallies.

In February, the German Bundestag stated in a report that there had been a total of 2,790 attacks on elected representatives in 2023. Members of the Green Party were disproportionately affected in 1,219 cases, representatives of the AfD in 478 cases and representatives of the SPD in 420 cases.

also read | German court orders prison sentence for Afghan-born man after knife attack at anti-political Islam event

The country’s Vice Chancellor, Robert Habeck (a member of the Green Party), was prevented from leaving a ferry for hours by a group of angry farmers in January. And the Vice President of the German Bundestag, Katrin Göring-Eckardt (also of the Green Party), was prevented from leaving an event in the state of Brandenburg last week when an angry crowd blocked her car.