In Germany, the campaign for the elections to the European Parliament has been shaken by a series of attacks and riotous protests.
The worst attack took place in Dresden in early May, where a group of youths kicked and punched politicians and election workers from the green and social democratic party SPD.
– It is typical of terror, says Nilsson Samuelsson from Norrköping, who lives in Dresden and is a member of the SPD.
The attack in Dresden was far from an isolated incident. Reports have continued to pour in of poll workers from all parties being threatened, subjected to hate comments and sometimes physically attacked.
For Swedish Nilsson Samuelsson, it started with an Erasmus exchange in Dresden. That was 22 years ago and he still lives there, with a German wife and three children.
At the same time as he puts up election posters, he tells TV4 Nyheterna that he works for Dresden’s state administration and is a member of the social democratic SPD. It is the same party that the EU politician Mathias Ecke belongs to, who was brutally beaten when he was out hanging posters.
Are you more careful when you are looking for what happened?
– Not really. You are at least as convinced and it becomes clear how important it is to do exactly this, to work for democracy, says Nilsson Samuelsson.
Poster for democracy
Four teenagers have been arrested by the police, suspected of the attack in Dresden. According to reports, they belong to a new far-right group in the city, a group that has started to appear more and more frequently at demonstrations around Dresden.
At those demonstrations, the Social Democratic Party and the Green Party of Germany are often called “traitors of the people” and a rhetoric of violence is often present. But despite that, Nilsson and his party friends intend to continue campaigning before the EU elections.
– If it is to be like this, then we will put up even more posters, he says.