SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
Thousands of people in Germany took to the streets again to call for tolerance and racial equality. (Photo: depone/flickr/cc)
Amid Rising Islamophobia In Germany, Thousands March Against Racism
At least 17,000 people across the country held protests to counter fascist organization Pegida
Jan 20, 2015
Thousands of people marched through cities and towns across Germany on Monday calling for tolerance and racial equality in the face of the country's rising Islamophobic demonstrations that fall under the banner of the far-right, extremist organization Pegida.
At least 17,000 people took part in the anti-racist mobilizations, including more than 10,000 people in Munich, 6,000 in Magdeburg, and many more at rallies in Wuerzburg, Nuremberg, Berlin, and Duesseldorf, according to estimates from AFP.
The showing, however, was smaller than last week's approximately 100,000 anti-racist marchers across Germany.
Citing alleged terror threats, police banned a Pegida march, initially slated to take place on Monday in the eastern German city of Dresden. Still, several hundred people held Pegida marches in German cities, according toDeutsche Welle.
Pegida, which stands for "Patriotic Europeans Against Islamization of the West," was founded on Facebook in October and has ties to neo-Nazi forces. While its public marches have been consistently far outnumbered nationwide by counter-demonstrations, Pegida's ranks appear to be growing amid Europe-wide Islamophobic backlash in the wake of the Paris attacks.
Last week Dresden saw its largest Pegida protest yet at 25,000 people.
The murder last week of Dresden-based Eritrean man Khaled Idris Bahray, still under investigation, raised concerns of race and ethnicity based attacks. Bahray's residence was vandalized with the image of a Swastika just three days before his murder, accompanied by the text, "We'll get you all."
Pegida rallies, furthermore, appear to be crossing borders. In Denmark, a group of approximately 200 people held a rally in central Copenhagen. However, an anti-Pegida rally attracted approximately 350 protesters.
On January 20th, it begins...
Political revenge. Mass deportations. Project 2025. Unfathomable corruption. Attacks on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Pardons for insurrectionists. An all-out assault on democracy. Republicans in Congress are scrambling to give Trump broad new powers to strip the tax-exempt status of any nonprofit he doesn’t like by declaring it a “terrorist-supporting organization.” Trump has already begun filing lawsuits against news outlets that criticize him. At Common Dreams, we won’t back down, but we must get ready for whatever Trump and his thugs throw at us. Our Year-End campaign is our most important fundraiser of the year. As a people-powered nonprofit news outlet, we cover issues the corporate media never will, but we can only continue with our readers’ support. By donating today, please help us fight the dangers of a second Trump presidency. |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Sarah Lazare
Sarah Lazare was a staff writer for Common Dreams from 2013-2016. She is currently web editor and reporter for In These Times.
Thousands of people marched through cities and towns across Germany on Monday calling for tolerance and racial equality in the face of the country's rising Islamophobic demonstrations that fall under the banner of the far-right, extremist organization Pegida.
At least 17,000 people took part in the anti-racist mobilizations, including more than 10,000 people in Munich, 6,000 in Magdeburg, and many more at rallies in Wuerzburg, Nuremberg, Berlin, and Duesseldorf, according to estimates from AFP.
The showing, however, was smaller than last week's approximately 100,000 anti-racist marchers across Germany.
Citing alleged terror threats, police banned a Pegida march, initially slated to take place on Monday in the eastern German city of Dresden. Still, several hundred people held Pegida marches in German cities, according toDeutsche Welle.
Pegida, which stands for "Patriotic Europeans Against Islamization of the West," was founded on Facebook in October and has ties to neo-Nazi forces. While its public marches have been consistently far outnumbered nationwide by counter-demonstrations, Pegida's ranks appear to be growing amid Europe-wide Islamophobic backlash in the wake of the Paris attacks.
Last week Dresden saw its largest Pegida protest yet at 25,000 people.
The murder last week of Dresden-based Eritrean man Khaled Idris Bahray, still under investigation, raised concerns of race and ethnicity based attacks. Bahray's residence was vandalized with the image of a Swastika just three days before his murder, accompanied by the text, "We'll get you all."
Pegida rallies, furthermore, appear to be crossing borders. In Denmark, a group of approximately 200 people held a rally in central Copenhagen. However, an anti-Pegida rally attracted approximately 350 protesters.
Sarah Lazare
Sarah Lazare was a staff writer for Common Dreams from 2013-2016. She is currently web editor and reporter for In These Times.
Thousands of people marched through cities and towns across Germany on Monday calling for tolerance and racial equality in the face of the country's rising Islamophobic demonstrations that fall under the banner of the far-right, extremist organization Pegida.
At least 17,000 people took part in the anti-racist mobilizations, including more than 10,000 people in Munich, 6,000 in Magdeburg, and many more at rallies in Wuerzburg, Nuremberg, Berlin, and Duesseldorf, according to estimates from AFP.
The showing, however, was smaller than last week's approximately 100,000 anti-racist marchers across Germany.
Citing alleged terror threats, police banned a Pegida march, initially slated to take place on Monday in the eastern German city of Dresden. Still, several hundred people held Pegida marches in German cities, according toDeutsche Welle.
Pegida, which stands for "Patriotic Europeans Against Islamization of the West," was founded on Facebook in October and has ties to neo-Nazi forces. While its public marches have been consistently far outnumbered nationwide by counter-demonstrations, Pegida's ranks appear to be growing amid Europe-wide Islamophobic backlash in the wake of the Paris attacks.
Last week Dresden saw its largest Pegida protest yet at 25,000 people.
The murder last week of Dresden-based Eritrean man Khaled Idris Bahray, still under investigation, raised concerns of race and ethnicity based attacks. Bahray's residence was vandalized with the image of a Swastika just three days before his murder, accompanied by the text, "We'll get you all."
Pegida rallies, furthermore, appear to be crossing borders. In Denmark, a group of approximately 200 people held a rally in central Copenhagen. However, an anti-Pegida rally attracted approximately 350 protesters.
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.