Another German politician attacked in the run-up to the EU elections

BERLIN –

A prominent Berlin politician was violently attacked and suffered injuries to her head and neck in the latest attack on elected officials, police said on Wednesday, raising concerns about rising political violence in Germany.

Franziska Giffey, the city’s top economic official, a former mayor and former federal minister, was attacked at an event in a Berlin library on Tuesday by a man who came up from behind and hit her with a bag containing a hard object, according to the police said.

Giffey was taken to a hospital and treated for a headache and neck pain, police said. A 74-year-old man was arrested and police searched his home, police said. They said the suspect was known to police but did not provide any information about a motive.

Berlin Mayor Kai Wegner strongly condemned the attack.

“Anyone who attacks politicians is attacking our democracy,” said Wegner, according to dpa. “We won’t tolerate that. We will oppose all forms of violence, hatred and incitement and protect our democracy.”

Giffey wrote on Instagram: “We live in a free and democratic country where everyone can freely express their opinions… and yet there is a clear limit. And that is violence against people who hold a different opinion, for whatever reasons, in whatever form.”

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

Later on Wednesday, Giffey, protected by several bodyguards, told reporters at a public event in Berlin that she was fine, but “we must also enable ourselves to live in a country where those who have social and political responsibility can live carry.” move freely.”

Last week, a candidate from Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s party was beaten and forced to undergo surgery while campaigning for next month’s European elections in the eastern city of Dresden.

The police arrested four suspects between the ages of 17 and 18 and said that the same group had apparently attacked a Green Party employee a few minutes before their attack on Matthias Ecke. At least one of the youths is believed to have ties to right-wing extremist groups, security officials said.

Also on Tuesday, a 47-year-old Green politician was attacked by two people while hanging up election posters in Dresden, as the dpa reported.

The incidents have increased political tensions in Germany.

Both government and opposition parties say their members and supporters have faced a wave of physical and verbal attacks in recent months and have called on police to step up protection for politicians and election rallies.

In February, the German Bundestag announced in a report that there had been a total of 2,790 attacks on elected representatives in 2023. Representatives of the Green Party were disproportionately affected in 1,219 cases, those of the right-wing extremist party Alternative for Germany (AfD) in 478 cases and representatives of the SPD in 420 cases.

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 blocked last week prevented from leaving an event in the state of Brandenburg when an angry crowd blocked her car.

German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said after a special meeting of the country’s 16 state interior ministers on the issue of violence on Tuesday that possible measures included tightening German criminal law to “punish anti-democratic acts more harshly.”

Many of the incidents took place in the country’s former communist east, where Scholz’s government is deeply unpopular. According to the Saxon Ministry of the Interior, 112 electoral offenses have been registered so far this year, including 30 against elected officials or representatives of the people.

Mainstream parties accuse the AfD of having ties to violent neo-Nazi groups and fomenting an intimidating political climate. One of their leaders, Björn Hoecke, is currently on trial for using a banned Nazi slogan.

Alternative for Germany, which campaigns against immigration and European integration, is expected to make gains in European polls and in elections in Saxony and two other eastern German states in the fall.