From Agence France-Presse (AFP)
A RECORD 17,000 anti-Islamic protesters rallied for their 10th demonstration in as many weeks yesterday in eastern Germany, celebrating the rise of their far-right populist movement by singing Christmas carols.
Germany has for weeks grappled with the emergence of the “Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident” (PEGIDA), whose ranks in Dresden have swelled rapidly from just a few hundred in October.
About 4500 counter-demonstrators marched in the city under the slogan “Dresden Nazi-free”, warning there was no space for racism in the country that perpetrated the Holocaust.
Most PEGIDA followers insist they are not Nazis but patriots who worry about the “watering down” of their Christian-rooted culture and traditions. They accuse political parties of betraying them and the media of lying.
Braving cold and wet weather, they gathered outside the historic Semperoper concert hall for their pre-Christmas recital.
Police put their numbers at about 17,500, up from 15,000 a week earlier.
The management of the opera house signalled its distaste by turning the lights off and flying flags outside that read: “Open your eyes”, “Open your hearts”, “Open doors” and “Human dignity is sacrosanct”, the first line of the national constitution.
The Protestant bishop of Saxony state, Jochen Bohl, said the PEGIDA followers, by singing Christmas carols, were seeking “to exploit a Christian symbol and a Christian tradition” for political purposes, German news agency DPA reported.
Former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, of the centre-left Social Democrats, called for concerned citizens to launch a “rebellion of the decent” against the anti-foreigner movement, saying “that’s the kind of public reaction we need now”.
