An Alternative for Germany (AfD) candidate has been injured in a second stabbing in Mannheim.
Occurring just days after a police officer was fatally injured in a suspected Islamist attack on a right-wing demonstration in the city, the latest incident on June 4 saw local politician Heinrich Koch sustain non-life-threatening injuries.
According to a report by German news outlet Die Welt, Koch was set upon after attempting to interrupt a man tearing down European Parliament election posters.
Der Angriff auf #AfD-Mitglied Heinrich #Koch im Video: Mit ihrer Hetze gegen die Opposition schaffen Ampel & Medien ein Klima, in dem selbst vor extremen körperlichen Attacken nicht mehr zurückgeschreckt wird. Wir verurteilen diese Gewalt und fordern dazu auf, sich endlich auf… pic.twitter.com/M8NSeYhaPy
— Alice Weidel (@Alice_Weidel) June 5, 2024
The AfD later uploaded footage allegedly showing the incident to social media on June 5, with party members blaming German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s traffic-light coalition government for what they said was its allowing of the normalisation of violence in the country.
“The recent knife attack in Mannheim clearly shows that we have several problems with violence in Germany. On the one hand, the violence committed by those who demand asylum, which recently resulted in the death of a police officer,” Bundestag MP Jan Wenzel Schmidt told Brussels Signal.
“On the other hand, there is political violence, to which the AfD in particular falls victim.
“The dissolution of borders – in several senses of the word – has turned Germany into a battlefield of violent criminals against whom the State is clearly powerless.”
A migrant who is suspected of fatally stabbing a police officer in his neck in a brutal attack has been living illegally in Germany for nine years, media in the country reports. https://t.co/RmPiEqV0bb
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) June 3, 2024
He added that “one could say” that the German Government “actively supports” such violence, citing the country’s so-called Kampf gegen Rechts campaign.
Literally translated as “The Fight against the Right”, the project is the brainchild of Germany’s Antifa-linked interior minister Nancy Faeser. Its aim is to disenfranchise right-wing politicians in the country under the auspices of “protecting” the German democracy and “combating right-wing extremism”.
As part of the project, Germany aims to “strengthen” attempts at prosecuting “hate on the Internet”, as well as enable ways to “dry up the financial sources” of what it termed “right-wing extremist networks”.
“It’s about defending our open society against its enemies,” Faeser claimed.
“We must do everything in our power to prevent this inhumane ideology from further eating into our society.”
The project’s establishment came amid continued attempts by the German Government to officially label the various youth and State branches of the AfD as extremist organisations, with some politicians advocating for the party to be banned entirely.
A hard-right Eurodance craze is rapidly spreading through Germany, despite attempts by the political mainstream to threaten would-be partygoers with job loss, fines and potential prison time. https://t.co/XCQzvCpITc
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) May 30, 2024
