The leaders of German anti-Islam movement PEGIDA plan to hold more rallies in Dresden mext week after their latest protest march was banned by police due to a terrorist threat.
"We don't want to see free speech and the right to assemble taken away from us," said Kathrin Oertel, co-founder of Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West (PEGIDA).
The movement, which is critical of immigration, has continued to stage increasingly popular weekly rallies in Dresden, despite growing criticism from political leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Last week about 25,000 PEGIDA supporters marched through Dresden in the wake of a terrorist massacre at Paris satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo.
Monday's march was banned because of "a concrete threat" against its participants, police said.
PEGIDA sympathisers marched on Monday in several other German cities, including Munich, Berlin, Braunschweig, Duisburg, Stralsund and Leipzig, but were largely outnumbered by counter demonstrators.
Supporters of the Danish branch of PEGIDA also staged their first protest drawing some 200 people for a central rally in Copenhagen on Monday. On the same night, Oslo saw its second PEGIDA demonstration in Norway with around 70 participants.
PEGIDA leaders insist the movement is not xenophobic.
"We don't want a revolution," Oertel said in Dresden. "We want a different relationship between political leaders and people."
The movement has laid out a six-point plan including more selective immigration policies and steps to bar Islamists and religious fanatics from entering Germany.
Share
