Leader of far-right German AfD party injured in street attack in Mainz

The leader of the far-right Alternativ fur Deutschland party in the Rhineland-Palatinate region in western Germany was allegedly injured in a street attack.

Uwe Junge was confronted by a group of four men in regional capital Mainz who allegedly hurled abuse at him, German press agency DPA reported. The 58-year-old told police that one of the men punched him in the face then kicked him. He suffered a bruise to the eye and shin in the attack.

It comes after Baden-Wurttemberg AfD leader Jorg Meuthen was injured at a political event in Lower Saxony when a teenager threw a frozen cake at him. Meuthen said that if the cake had hit him directly, he would have been hospitalised, and called the act "cowardly and dangerous."

Support for the staunchly anti-immigration AfD party has increased in recent months, as Germans question Chancellor Angela Merkel's open door refugee policy.

The party has drawn accusations of racism, after leader Frauke Petry called for police to shoot refugees entering the country illegally, and alleged Islam is incompatible with Germany.