A prominent member of Germany's far-left Linke party was hit in the face with a chocolate cream pie yesterday in an attack claimed by a self-styled "anti-fascist" group protesting against her stance on refugees.
Sahra Wagenknecht, who has advocated putting a limit on the number of refugees Germany should accept, is the second German politician to be attacked with a dessert this year over her position on asylum-seekers.
Beatrix von Storch of the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party suffered a similar fate last month.
Ms Wagenknecht was sitting in the front row during the opening speech at a party congress when a young man stopped in front of her and threw the creamy pie in her face, before shouting what sounded like slogans.
The party's president interrupted his speech. As cameramen rushed towards her, one party official asked journalists not to film or take pictures of Ms Wagenknecht as another sought to screen the Linke's parliamentary group leader with a jacket.
The man who threw the pie was swiftly taken away by security and he offered no resistance. A young woman later said they belonged to a group called the "Anti-fascist Initiative, pies against the enemies of mankind", which was outraged by Ms Wagenknecht's refugee policy.
Ms Wagenknecht suffered a backlash in her own party when she spoke of a cap on how many refugees Germany should take in.
The party has since distanced itself from that position.
German populist party in race row over Boateng remarks
It comes as a leading member of the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party sparked outrage after making racist remarks about national football team defender Jerome Boateng.
AfD's deputy chief Alexander Gauland told the Sunday newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung that Germans would not like to have Boateng, who has a Ghanaian father and was born and brought up in Berlin, as a neighbour.
"People find him good as a footballer, but they don't want to have a Boateng as a neighbour," Mr Gauland said.
The comments drew immediate and widespread condemnation.
The president of the DFB German football league, Reinhard Grindel, slammed the comments as "simply tasteless".
Boateng, 27, "is an excellent player and a wonderful person, who gets involved in social causes and is a role model for many young people".
The manager of the German national team, Oliver Bierhoff, said: "It isn't the first time that we've been confronted with such statements. They need no comment. The people who made them are simply discrediting themselves."
German Justice Minister Heiko Maas slammed the comments as "unacceptable and shabby".
"People who say things like that unmask themselves, and not just as a bad neighbour," he wrote on Twitter.
