A candidate for Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s centre-left party in next month’s European Parliament election has been seriously injured while campaigning in eastern Germany, the party said on Saturday.

Matthias Ecke, a Social Democrats (SPD) candidate, was attacked while putting up political posters in Dresden on Friday evening, according to the party.

He was taken to hospital and required surgery for his injuries, it said. 

Police said the 41-year-old was hit and kicked by four men and that the same group had apparently attacked a Green Party worker minutes before in the same street.

Interior Minister Nancy Faeser, also a Social Democrat, said if it’s proven that the assault on Ecke was politically motivated, it would represent “a serious attack on democracy.”

The attack was the latest in a series of incidents raising political tensions in Germany ahead of the European Parliament election.  

Scholz’s SPD launched their official campaign for the 9 June vote with a rally last week in Hamburg, where the German leader grew up.

“We are experiencing a new dimension of anti-democratic violence,” Faeser said. 

She promised “tougher action and further protective measures for the democratic forces in our country.”

Government and opposition parties say their members and supporters have faced a wave of physical and verbal attacks in recent months and have called on police to step up protection for politicians and election rallies.

Many of the incidents have occurred in the former communist east of the country, where the far-right Alternative for Germany party (AfD) is expected to make gains in the European elections and upcoming votes in Germany. 

Last week, the car carrying the vice-president of the German parliament, Katrin Goering-Eckardt of the Greens, was surrounded for nearly an hour by protesters as she tried to leave a rally. 

The opposition Christian Democrats and the Left party say their workers have also faced intimidation and seen their posters ripped down.

Mainstream parties accuse the AfD of links to violent neo-Nazi groups and of fomenting an increasingly harsh political climate. A prominent AfD leader, Bjoern Hoecke, is currently on trial accused of using a banned Nazi slogan. 

Germany’s domestic intelligence service has placed some chapters of the party under surveillance.

The branch of the Social Democrats in Saxony state, where Ecke is their lead candidate for the European elections, said their campaign would go on despite “fascist methods” of intimidation.

“The seeds that the AfD and other right-wing extremists have sown are germinating,” the branch leaders, Henning Homann und Kathrin Michel, said in a joint statement. “These people and their supporters carry responsibility for what is happening in this country.”

A song that praises North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un has gone viral on TikTok. 

“Let’s sing Kim Jong Un, the great leader,” the song called “Friendly Father” says, according to BBC News. “Let’s brag about Kim Jong Un, our friendly father.”

“Is this a single or where can I get the whole album,” one TikToker joked. Another said, “It’s so dystopian in the catchiest way.”

“I don’t really like Kim Jong Un but he was really cooking on this song,” another said.

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South Korean pop, or K-pop, and Western music are banned inside North Korea, and some defectors have cited illegally listening to outside music as a factor in their decision to defect. 

“When you listen to North Korean music, you have no emotions,” North Korean defector Ryu Hee-Jin told The Washington Post in 2019. “But when you listen to American or South Korean music, it literally gives you the chills. The lyrics are so fresh, so relatable. When kids listen to this music, their facial expressions just change.” 

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Of “Friendly Father,” Peter Moody, a North Korea expert at Korea University, told BBC News, “The song has Abba written all over it.  It’s upbeat, it could not be more catchy and a rich set of orchestral-sounding sequences could not be more prominent.” 

Some North Korean defectors have cited listening to K-pop music like the group BTS as helping them decide to defect.  (Han Myung-Gu/WireImage)

Alexandra Leonzini of Cambridge University told the outlet North Korean authorities would have sought to make an “earworm” song with simple lyrics that’s easy to sing.

“All artistic output in North Korea must serve the class education of citizens and more specifically educate them as to why they should feel a sense of gratitude, a sense of loyalty to the party,” she said. 

Defectors have said the government plays propaganda songs every morning throughout the country, citizens are taught choreographed dances to the songs and the lyrics are printed in newspapers. (KCNA via REUTERS)

Defectors have said the government plays propaganda songs every morning throughout the country, citizens are taught choreographed dances to the songs and the lyrics are printed in newspapers.

“By the time the song has sort of been taken into the body, it’s become part of the person,” Keith Howard, a professor at the London School of African and Oriental Studies, said. “So, they know the lyrics so well, even if they’re just doing the actions, even if they’re just listening to it. A good ideological song does that. It needs to embed the message.”