PEGIDA

PEGIDA roughly translates as 'Patriotic Europeans against Islamisation of the West' (Patriotische Europaer Gegen die Islamisierung des Abendlandes).

The group has a short history. On October 10, 2014 Lutz Bachmann posted a video on YouTube, showing a rally in Dresden in support of Kurdish fighters against ISIS. Soon afterwards he set up a Facebook group opposing the "Islamisation of the West." This quickly began to attract comments opposing the "advancing Islamisation of our country," as well as against ISIS, the Kurdish PKK, al-Qaeda and others. In only three months PEGIDA marches had grown from 300 to over 25,000 people.

By October 20, 2014, Bachmann had gathered enough support for his first march in Dresden. Only 300 people turned up, but by January 5, 2015 this had grown to 18,000. When the group met for the twelfth time on January 12, 2015 an estimated 25,000 took part.  

In November 2014 an event was held at a town near Dresden where the bestselling author and former politician, Thilo Sarrazin, was appearing. Sarrazin's 2010 book, Deutschland schafft sich ab ("Germany is Doing Away With Itself") sold over 1.5 million copies. In the book Sarrazin advocates a strict immigration policy for Germany, better integration and attacks the many unreasonable demands on Europe by the Muslim community. The event was well attended, including by many of those who supported Bachmann's Facebook group, but was also met with demonstrations. PEGIDA states its aims as refusing "...to allow the spread of activities by groups such as [ISIS] and al-Qaeda in Europe..." and to ensure that all "German children can grow up in a cosmopolitan and friendly nation."