Germany wants to punish attacks on politicians more severely after a series of incidents | Abroad

Buschmann is thus responding to a request from the responsible ministers of the various federal states. Earlier this week, they already asked for an investigation into the possibilities for expanding criminal law. For example, the state of Saxony wants action to be taken against aggressive demonstrations at the homes of politicians.

A week ago, Social Democratic MEP Matthias Ecke was seriously injured in Dresden, the capital of Saxony. He was abused while putting up election posters. Local elections are held in Saxony in September.

His party colleague Franziska Giffey was attacked in the back in a library in Berlin on Tuesday. That same day, candidate councilor Yvonne Mosler of Die Grünen was attacked, threatened and spat at in Dresden. And in Stuttgart a day later, two politicians from the right-wing Alternative for Germany party were slightly injured when they were attacked.

Buschmann says stricter penalties are not enough to tackle the growing aggression against politicians. “The social problem of a general hardening of the political debate cannot be solved with criminal law alone,” the minister emphasizes.

A political scientist from the Heinrich-Heine-Universität in Düsseldorf told the news agency Reuters The reason why polarization in Germany is so great is that dissenting opinions are quickly seen as hostile.

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