SPD: Corner after attack: “Don’t let me be silenced”

The SPD MEP Matthias Ecke made combative statements in his first public appearance a week after the attack on him. “I won’t let myself be silenced,” he said with a clearly visible red-blue shadow under his eye at a party event in Leipzig. The attack hit him, but it didn’t knock him down or intimidate him. He experienced his party as very combative.

Late in the evening of May 3rd, four young attackers aged 17 and 18 knocked out Ecke as he tried to put up election posters. He suffered broken bones in his face and had to undergo surgery.

Organized disinhibition in society

Corner identified the cause of the attack as the brutalization and organized disinhibition in society, behind which actors of the extreme right were. “This is the AfD in Saxony, these are the Free Saxons, there are other networks of the extreme right.” They would have created a climate in which political opponents are identified as targets, in which people feel encouraged to take matters into their own hands.

Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser described the attack as a breach of the dam. It is the result of the mood in the country being increasingly deliberately and deliberately poisoned by the far right, she said in Leipzig. “Whoever says ‘We will hunt them down’ also bears responsibility if this hunt for politically active people actually takes place.” We must act against this political aggression with all the rigor of the constitutional state. A clear stop signal is needed. “The perpetrators need to know that they have done something wrong and that society will respond to it.”

Faeser assured that the federal security authorities would continue to take decisive action against extremists and hate crimes. “Because it is hatred, especially on the internet, that prepares the ground for such acts.” The Federal Minister of the Interior emphasized that she had great respect for Ecke. His appearance after the brutal attack was an “incredibly great sign”.

Ecke praised the police’s actions in his case. There was a high level of investigative pressure and the perpetrators were identified. “A lot of things really went well,” said the SPD politician. But he knows that not all victims of right-wing violence feel this way. He wishes that every man and woman in such a situation could have the same experiences. “I think the state needs to send a clear message that it will not tolerate this form of violence,” said Ecke. The punishment must follow immediately.

Other politicians also affected by violence

The group had also attacked a Green Party campaign worker a few minutes before the attack on Ecke. Four days later, a Green Party local politician in Dresden was also insulted, threatened and spat at while posting posters. Also on Tuesday evening, Economics Senator Franziska Giffey (SPD) was attacked by a man in a library in Berlin.

On the same day, the federal and state interior ministers spoke out in favor of better protection for politically active people and in favor of examining whether there should be higher penalties if violence is directed against politicians. A proposal from Saxony to make threatening officials and elected officials at their place of residence – also known as political stalking – a criminal offense was also discussed.