- "Make you think and fear" - Politician receives threatening calls
Because he was threatened on the phone with the words "Today you're still putting up posters, tomorrow you're hanging", the deputy chairman of the state chapter of the Left party, Daniel Starost, filed a complaint. The police in Saalfeld confirmed on Tuesday that a complaint had been filed in this context against an unknown person for threats.
Possible Connection to Postering Action
Starost told dpa that he had received two calls with the mentioned content on his work phone on Friday and Saturday. The number was public, and a woman's voice could be heard. Before that, on Thursday, he had put up election posters and posted a video of it on the TikTok platform. Starost is running for the state parliament in the Saalfeld-Rudolstadt constituency. He also received an email with a screenshot of the video, in which he was insulted, among other things. The politician sees a connection between the calls. He then filed a complaint on Monday.
Starost: A New Vile Form of Threat
While he is used to insults and hate comments when posting posters, the calls represent a new, vile form of threat for him in the election campaign. "It's very thought-provoking and also scary."
In recent months, there have been several attacks on party offices and even politicians themselves. In Dresden, the SPD candidate Matthias Ecke was beaten up so badly that he had to be hospitalized. In Thuringia, a wooden cross was placed in front of the office of the state parliament president Birgit Pommer (Left) in Bleicherode in July. The inscription "German victims, foreign perpetrators" and a painted knife from which blood seems to drip were visible. Also in July, unknown persons attacked the Left's constituency office of Minister President Bodo Ramelow and the state parliamentarians Karola Stange and André Blechschmidt in Erfurt and damaged a window.
Starost expressed concern about the threat call, seeing it as a new form of vile intimidation in his election campaign. The content of the calls, mentioning posters and future consequences, has led him to believe there is a connection between the calls and his postering action.
The recent escalation of attacks on party offices and politicians, such as the beating of SPD candidate Matthias Ecke in Dresden and the incident at Birgit Pommer's office in Bleicherode, adds to Starost's apprehension and highlights the growing intensity of political threats.
