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Concept
Pegida
Summary
Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West (Patriotische Europäer gegen die Islamisierung des Abendlandes), abbreviated Pegida (peˈɡiːda, stylised in its logo as PEGIDA), is a pan-European, anti-Islam, far-right political movement. German Pegida believes that Germany is being increasingly Islamicised and defines itself in opposition to Islamic extremism.
Pegida wants to curb immigration into Germany and it accuses the authorities of failure to enforce related laws. Pegida has held many demonstrations, often accompanied by counter-demonstrations. In 2015, Lutz Bachmann, the founder of Pegida, resigned from the movement after posing as Adolf Hitler and making racist statements on Facebook. He was later reinstated.
Though nationalism is a central feature, Pegida offshoots have formed in various countries. It is a grassroots part of the counter-jihad movement.
Pegida was founded in October 2014 by Lutz Bachmann, who runs a public relations agency in Dresden. Bachmann's impetus for starting Pegida was witnessing a rally by alleged supporters of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) against the siege of Kobani by the Islamic State (ISIL) on 10 October 2014 in Dresden, which he posted on YouTube on the same day. The next day he founded a Facebook group called Patriotische Europäer Gegen die Islamisierung des Abendlandes ('Patriotic Europeans against Islamisation of the Occident').
On 7 October, Yazidis and Muslim Chechens had violently clashed in Celle. On 26 October, out of 5,000 protesters, "at least 400 right-wing extremists went on a rampage in downtown Cologne during a demonstration" by "Hooligans Against Salafists". Bachmann mentioned these events in a release for his first demonstration.
The first demonstration, or "evening stroll" (according to Pegida), took place on 20 October 2014, and attracted only a handful of people. During the following days, the movement began gaining wider public attention, and, subsequently, the weekly Monday demonstrations drew larger numbers of people.
Official source
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