Just over a week after being attacked while putting up election posters in the eastern German city of Dresden, Matthias Ecke, who represents Germany's Social Democrats (SPD) in the European Parliament, has made a combative statement in his first public appearance.
"I will not be silenced," he said on Monday with a clearly visible bruising under his eye at an event organized by the SPD Saxony in the eastern German city of Leipzig.
The attack had struck him, but not defeated him and not intimidated him, Ecke said, adding that his party had a strong fighting spirit.
In the late evening of May 3, four young attackers aged 17 and 18 had knocked Ecke down as he was putting up election posters. He suffered facial fractures and had to undergo surgery.
Ecke attributed the cause of the attack to brutalization and organized disinhibition in society, which actors from the extreme right were behind.
"It's the AfD in Saxony, it's the Free Saxons, it's other networks of the extreme right," Ecke said, adding that these political groups had created a climate in which political opponents are labelled as targets, in which people feel encouraged to take matters into their own hands.
Ecke praised the actions of the police in his case. There had been a high level of investigative pressure and the perpetrators had been identified.
"A lot really went very well," said the SPD politician. However, he knows that not all victims of right-wing violence feel the same way. He wished that every person in such a situation could have the same experience.
"I believe that the state must send a clear signal that it will not tolerate this form of violence," said Ecke. The punishment must follow on its heels.
The group had also attacked a Green Party campaign worker a few minutes earlier. On Tuesday evening, just four days later, Green Party politician Yvonne Mosler was also insulted, threatened and spat at while putting up posters in Dresden.
On the same evening, the Berlin senator for Economics, SPD's Franziska Giffey, was also attacked by a man in a library in the German capital.