The Mitteldeutsche Rundfunk (MDR) was horrified by an attack on a TV team of the station on Monday evening. The journalists accompanied for the news magazine Exactly a so-called walk against the Corona measures in Zwickau, when they were physically attacked, as the broadcasting company announced on Tuesday in Leipzig. According to the information, the “Free Saxons”, among others, called for the unauthorized meeting, which the Saxon constitutional protection authorities recently classified as right-wing extremist and anti-constitutional tendencies. The attackers were reported to have been reported.
MDR director Karola Wille described the violent conflict over corona measures as “terrifying and unbearable”. The broadcaster condemned the attack in the strongest possible terms. What is needed now is “strong solidarity and the constant advocacy of media freedom rights as an important fundamental right of every democracy.” For a while now, attacks on journalists have been increasing, especially from right-wing extremist areas and on the fringes of “lateral thinking” demonstrations. Most recently, the organization Reporters Without Borders recorded 65 attacks on media workers nationwide for 2020, a five-fold increase compared to 2019. Germany was therefore downgraded from the category “good” to “satisfactory” in the “ranking of press freedom”.