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Crowd Throws Tomatoes At Merkel During Rally

REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach

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Jacob Bojesson Foreign Correspondent
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel was hit with a tomato Tuesday during a rally in the southern college town of Heidelberg, news agency Deutsche Presse Agentur reports.

Police said two tomatoes were thrown during different times of Merkel’s speech. One tomato hit the chancellor’s left hip. A representative for Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) was also hit. DPA reports that Merkel kept the same outfit on for a television appearance hours later.

Some 3,000 people showed up to the rally. The crowd was primarily made up of Merkel supporters and CDU, but some attendees chanted “hypocrite” and “liar” throughout her speech.

“If we made a mistake, then it wasn’t in taking in people, but rather that we didn’t pay attention to the fact that people in Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and Syria didn’t have enough to eat, weren’t getting an education and put themselves into the hands of people smugglers,” Merkel said in defense of her decision to open doors to migrants in 2015.

Merkel has been heckled during several campaign events as she tries to secure a fourth term in office in the Sept. 24 election. Supporters of the populist Alternative for Germany party (AfD) have shown up to protest Merkel’s immigration policy, which Merkel has called a strength of Germany’s democracy.

“Sometimes listening a bit isn’t a bad thing,” she said after a rally in August, according to Reuters.

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