Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen was assaulted in central Copenhagen by a 39-year-old man, inflicting her to undergo minor whiplash. She was rushed to the hospital for a check-up however was unhurt. The suspect, a Polish citizen residing in Denmark since 2019, was arrested and appeared in a pre-trial custody listening to the place he was ordered to be jailed pending additional investigation. The person is charged with violence in opposition to an individual in public service and police imagine he might have been beneath the affect of medication and alcohol on the time of the incident.
The main points of the assault are nonetheless unclear, however witnesses reported seeing the person forcefully approaching Frederiksen and pushing her laborious on the shoulder as she handed via Kultorvet Sq. in Copenhagen. Regardless of the assault, she didn’t fall down, and safety personnel shortly intervened to apprehend the assailant. Politicians each in Denmark and overseas condemned the assault, with NATO Secretary-Basic Jens Stoltenberg calling it a surprising occasion. Prime Ministers from Sweden and Finland additionally expressed their help for Frederiksen and denounced the act of violence in opposition to a democratically elected chief.
The assault on Frederiksen comes at a time when European Union parliamentary elections are underway in Denmark and the remainder of the bloc. The incident was not linked to any marketing campaign occasion, however violence in opposition to politicians has grow to be a regarding difficulty main as much as the elections. Prior to now, there have been situations of assaults on political figures throughout marketing campaign occasions, together with a current incident in Germany the place a candidate was crushed and injured. The European Council President Charles Michel condemned the assault on Frederiksen as a cowardly act of aggression that undermines the values of freedom and democracy.
Mette Frederiksen, who has been Prime Minister since 2019, has been praised for her management in the course of the international COVID-19 pandemic and controversial selections such because the mass culling of Denmark’s mink inhabitants to stop the unfold of the virus. She is the chief of the Social Democratic Celebration in Denmark. Assaults on politicians in Denmark are uncommon, with the final main incident involving activists throwing pink paint at former Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen in 2003. The assault on Frederiksen has sparked considerations concerning the security of elected officers and the necessity to shield democracy within the face of such violent acts.