German federal interior minister Nancy Faeser and the interior ministers of Germany’s sixteen states are debating on the evening of Tuesday, May 7th, whether to increase the police presence at political events in order to protect politicians from physical assaults.
The extraordinary meeting was called after Matthias Ecke, a Social Democrat member of the European Parliament, was brutally attacked by four teenagers on Friday, leaving him hospitalised and in need of surgery. The incident provoked uproar all across the country, and violence against politicians was widely condemned. However, mainstream parties immediately blamed the opposition anti-immigration, anti-globalist Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) for the attack—not for actual involvement in any form, but for “sowing discord” within society.
