Harsher penalties will not be enough to curb the increasing aggression against politicians, Justice Minister Marco Buschmann has said.
"The attempt to solve the social problem of a general brutalization of political debate with criminal law alone will fail," the politician from the pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP) told dpa. Nevertheless, he was prepared to look at proposals from the federal states on criminal law.
The federal and state interior ministers had met for a video conference on Tuesday following the brutal attack on a Social Democratic (SPD) member of European Parliament from Saxony, Matthias Ecke, while campaigning last week.
In a joint resolution, the conference of interior ministers asked the justice ministers to examine as soon as possible whether "the specific injustice that can be seen in the fact that such attacks jeopardize democracy" is already sufficiently reflected in criminal law.
It should also be examined whether "the deliberate dissemination of disinformation with the aim of influencing elections or escalating violence constitutes a criminal offence."
Attacks on politicians have been on the rise.
On May 3, Ecke was putting up posters in Dresden when he was beaten so badly he had to be hospitalized. He is the SPD's top candidate in the state for the upcoming European Parliament elections in June.
On Tuesday, a man hit Berlin's top economic official, Franziska Giffey of the SPD on the back of the head in a public library.
The leading Green Party candidate for the city council, Yvonne Mosler, was jostled and threatened while putting up election posters in Dresden.
According to the police, two members of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) in the state parliament were verbally and physically attacked by suspected opponents of the party in Stuttgart on Wednesday.
The left-wing Stuttgart Anti-Fascist Action Alliance activist group on Friday said that they protested an AfD campaign booth outside state parliament, but contended that blame for the scuffle rested with security and the AfD lawmakers.
The group, which is part of the left-wing Antifa movement, pledged to continue "disrupting" AfD campaign events.
The co-leader of the far-right AfD, Tino Chrupalla, told public radio in Berlin on Friday that proposals to punish attacks on politicians more severely are "nonsense."
"A politician is no better than a normal worker or business owner," Chrupalla said.
At the same time, the AfD co-chairman emphasized that violence should never be a means of political debate: "It is simply condemnable when people are attacked - regardless of their views or party affiliation."
Some observers have blamed the far-right AfD for inflamed tensions in German politics, and have argued that the party's rhetoric bears some responsibility for violence.
Chrupalla, however, denied that his party is responsible and attributed the turn to a broader social divide in Germany.
Politicians from other parties have also sometimes used harsh vocabulary, said the AfD chairman: "Verbal disarmament would be good for us all."
The state government in Saxony plans to introduce a bill in the Bundesrat, or upper house of parliament, that would create a new criminal offence of "political stalking" for aggressive attempts to influence or intimidate politicians.
The proposed crime would carry penalties for threatening situations such as aggressive marches in front of a politician's home.
Buschmann, however, said lawmakers must be careful to make any new criminal definitions precise to avoid trampling on rights like free speech and protest. He said he hadn't yet reviewed the wording of Saxony's proposal.
"This means that we cannot use imprecise wording that would potentially criminalize legitimate behaviour."
Freedom of assembly is a valuable liberty, and citizens are also allowed to criticize a politician.
"This must be precisely differentiated from an unacceptable threatening situation," emphasized the justice minister.
