Two new attacks aggravate concern in Germany about violence against politicians

Far from the situation calming down, attacks against politicians in Germany continue. The former mayor of Berlin and now responsible for the economy in the city government, social democrat Franziska Giffey, was slightly injured after being attacked on Tuesday afternoon in the Rudow neighborhood, in the south of the German capital. Giffey, 46, was suddenly attacked from behind by a man in a library at around 4.15pm with a hard bag of contents and hit on the head and neck. The suspect then fled, according to the public prosecutor’s office and the Berlin police. The politician had to go to the hospital to receive outpatient treatment for pain in her head and neck.

Subsequently, the Berlin Prosecutor’s Office reported the arrest of the 74-year-old man, who has already been accused of crimes against state security and inciting hatred. Likewise, there are indications that he suffers from a mental illness, which is why the Prosecutor’s Office is considering requesting an order for his confinement in a psychiatric hospital.

In addition to Giffey, on Tuesday, Yvonne Mosler, a local Greens politician, was also attacked in Dresden, the same city where social democrat Matthias Ecke was brutally attacked last Friday and had to be hospitalized for a broken cheekbone and the eye socket. Like Ecke, the 47-year-old environmentalist politician was putting up election posters for the European elections when she was pushed, insulted and threatened by a man and spat on by a woman, according to police, who shortly after arrested a woman from 24 years old and a 34-year-old man as suspects.

These attacks on politicians and public officials have unleashed concern in Germany, which has been debating for days about what can be done to better protect citizens involved in politics, especially in such a delicate year, in which, in addition to the European elections of 9 June, local elections will be held in nine federal states, as well as elections in three eastern states (Saxony, Brandenburg and Thuringia) in September.

Within this framework, the regional interior ministers of the federal states held an extraordinary meeting on Tuesday to analyze the situation. The head of the Interior, the social democrat Nancy Faeser, announced that they agreed to review and promote a tightening of the Penal Code to improve the protection of people who work in politics and streamline these judicial processes. To do this, she must first reach a consensus with the Minister of Justice, the liberal Marco Buschmann.

Giffey, who was Family Minister during Angela Merkel’s last grand coalition, from 2018 to 2021, was shocked by what happened. “There is a place in Neukölln that is very special to me: the Alt-Rudow neighborhood library. During my time as Neukölln Councilor for Education and district mayor, I campaigned for this library to be rebuilt. “I would never have thought that they would attack me there,” she wrote on the social network X about the attack that caught her off guard while she was having a conversation with the director of the library.

The social democrat also reflected her concern about the increase in attacks against people who are involved in politics in Germany and who are “increasingly exposed” to attacks. “We live in a free and democratic country in which everyone is free to express their opinion. However, there is a clear limit. And this is violence against people who have a different opinion, for whatever reason and in whatever way. Nothing can justify these attacks.”

The mayor of Berlin, the Christian Democrat Kai Wegner, also expressed his indignation. “Whoever attacks politicians is attacking our democracy,” he declared. “We will not tolerate it. We will oppose all forms of violence, hatred and unrest and protect our democracy,” he added.

Legislative reforms

According to the president of the conference of interior ministers, Michael Stübgen, from the eastern state of Brandenburg, the current criminal law “no longer adequately reflects the threat to public officials and elected representatives as well as volunteers.” For this reason, he requested the implementation of specific legislative initiatives to expand the German Penal Code and that crimes against public officials and elected representatives appear separately and, where appropriate, be judged more severely for being “dangerous for democracy.” ”. In short, it is about deterring potential criminals in advance.

“We are too lax, too lax,” the mayor of Leipzig, Burkhard Jung, also criticized on German radio. Deutschlandfunk. “Politicians have almost had to get used to insults and harassment,” he said. In his opinion, the limits of what can be said must be redefined, since too often, these types of incidents are dismissed as “normal and unpleasant” slander that can be tolerated, something that must change.

According to government figures, these types of attacks on politicians have almost doubled in recent years, going from 1,420 in 2019 to 2,790 cases in 2023. Although these types of attacks are nothing new for parties, they believe that something has changed. “Attacks are increasing; “They are no longer isolated incidents,” a spokesperson for the Social Democratic Party (SPD) told the newspaper. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. “Volunteer campaign managers now claim that not a single poster team can make it through a two-hour shift without being insulted or attacked,” he notes.

The Greens party is usually the target of this type of attack. While in 2019 there were 174 attacks against their representatives, last year the figure rose to 1,219. This number doubled in the period between 2022 and 2023. For their part, the politicians of the ultra Alternative for Germany (AfD) party are the second most attacked, with 478 cases in 2023, followed by the social democrats, with 420. For For years, parties have organized workshops on how their members and local politicians deal with hate or harassment, both on-line like in the street. Several parties have set up telephone numbers for members who suffer an attack. Reported assaults are recorded and reported to the police. But it is clear, as many politicians and experts point out, that this is not enough.

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