Pegida Rallies Heat Up in Germany

Daily Mail:

Thousands of anti-immigration protesters marched through the streets of a German city in the latest demonstration against the huge influx of refugees.

Around 8,000 people joined the anti-Islam Pegida movement for a rally in Dresden over Angela Merkel’s decision to allow up to one million migrants into the country this year.

Some demonstrators held crucifixes and upside-down German flags while others shouted ‘Merkel out!’ alongside doctored images of the German Chancellor in a burqa and a Nazi outfit.

The group’s leaders, who have been described by German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere as ‘hard right-wing extremists’, are demanding an immediate end to the policy. 

Out in force: Thousands of anti-immigration protesters protesters marched through the streets of a German city in the latest demonstration against the huge influx of refugees 

Demonstrators hold an illuminated cross and German flags upside-down during a demonstration of PEGIDA (Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the West) in Dresden, eastern Germany, on Monday

Around 8,000 people joined the anti-Islam PEGIDA movement for a rally in Dresden over Angela Merkel’s decision to allow up to one million migrants into the country this year

Video of the protest emerged on YouTube as prosecutors have opened an investigation into the group’s founder for slander after he compared the justice minister to Hitler’s head of propaganda Joseph Goebbels. 

Lutz Bachmann said Social Democrat (SPD) minister Heiko Maas was the ‘worst spiritual fire raiser’ since Goebbels and Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler.

Von Schnitzler was a television commentator in Communist East Germany who strongly criticised Western governments and media.