Just over a week after being attacked while putting up election posters in the eastern German city of Dresden, Matthias Ecke, who represents Germany’s Social Democrats (SPD) in the European Parliament, has made a combative statement in his first public appearance. “I will not be silenced,” he said on Monday with a clearly visible bruising under his eye at an event organized by the SPD Saxony in the eastern German city of Leipzig. The attack had struck him, but not defeated him and not intimidated him, Ecke said, adding that his party had a strong fighting spirit. In the late evening of May 3, …