Anti-refugee, anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim tensions flare in Europe
USA Today reports that anti-immigration and anti-Muslim groups from across Europe demonstrated Saturday as migrants fleeing a renewed offensive by the Syrian government surged along Turkey’s border. In Dresden, thousands of members of Germany’s Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the Occident, or PEGIDA, participated in a rally to demonstrate Chancellor Angela Merkel‘s liberal policies directed at migrants. Many in the crowd chanted “Merkel must go” and held signs comparing the German leader to a dictator. The chancellor’s popularity ratings have tumbled. Siegfried Däbritz, a PEGIDA leader, said in an address that he doubted those granted asylum in Germany could integrate into the nation’s culture. He called for “resistance to immigration from the Islamic area.”
KJ