While 18,000 people – a record – marched Monday in Dresden, against Islamization to the call of the anti-Muslim Pegida movement against a large-mobilization took place in several cities of Germany.

Like every week, thousands of people gathered on Monday January 5 in Dresden, in eastern Germany , under the banner of patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the West (Pegida) . Police said they were 18,000, or 500 more than at their previous demonstration on 22 December.

During his New Year message, the German Chancellor Angela Merkel had called his countrymen not to participate in demonstrations of Pegida, saying that they were organized by people in the heart full of bias and hate.

Monday, despite the messages sent by the movement denouncing the policies of all edges, demonstrators again chanted Wir sind das Volk (We are the people!), Formerly a slogan chanted by protesters against the regime of the GDR, shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Their targets: Islam, foreigners, the media (all liars), political elites, multiculturalism, etc., which would dilute the German Christian culture.

Opposite Pegida Monday in Dresden, approximately 3000 against-demonstrators, according to police, had gathered at the initiative of a particular group of associations called Dresden for all. They had the slogan Come, let’s talk Let us tackle the problems really!.

In the rest of Germany, the power struggle between supporters and detractors of Pegida however, was reversed. In Rostock, another city in former East Germany, it is indeed the opposition movement that is become more vocal, especially chanting Willkommen im Abendland (Welcome to the West!).

In Cologne, in the west of the country, a few thousand of opponents Pegida faced hundreds of people denouncing the “Islamization” according to an AFP correspondent. The bridges on the Rhine, the city hall and the iconic cathedral had been extinguished in protest against Pegida, the Catholic Church explains that militated against discrimination for religious freedom and would not offer beautiful scenery in this movement. Criticizing Islam, yes, but the hatred of foreigners, it is inhumane, could be read on a banner of against-demonstrators.

In Berlin, about 300 anti-militants “Islamization” gathered on the outskirts of the town hall while some 5000-against protesters, according to German news agency DPA, headed to the Brandenburg Gate, including the Federal Minister of Justice, Heiko Mass. The lighting of the symbol of the German capital building had also been cut. On his Twitter account, the Foreign Ministry has released photos of this procession, accompanied by a message in which he says that there is no place for a xenophobic agitation in Germany.

In the towns of Munster (northwest, 10,000 people), Stuttgart (south, 8000) or Hamburg (North, 4000), anti-Pegida had also mobilized. In the latter city, the event was organized by a group called tolerant Europeans against the cretinisation of the West (Tegida).