Merkel warns against anti-Islam sentiment

The German chancellor Angela Merkel has warned the country’s citizens not to participate in weekly anti-Islam rallies that have attracted growing numbers of supporters in the eastern city of Dresden.

She condemned the organisers of the protests and said they were driven by prejudices and hatred against foreigners.

The chancellor used unusually direct words in her new year’s speech yesterday for the rallies organized by a group calling itself Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the West, or PEGIDA, which have been attended by thousands.

When the protesters chant “we are the people,” they actually mean to say “you don’t belong — because of your religion or your skin color,” Merkel said.

The PEGIDA organisers have insisted that they are protesting only against extremism and not against immigrants or Islam itself.