Germany's anti-Islam PEGIDA alliance stages its final demonstration

Ten years after its foundation, the anti-Islam alliance PEGIDA held its last demonstration in the eastern German city of Dresden on Sunday.

According to an estimate by a dpa reporter, around 500 people participated. The organizers had expected significantly more, with 3,000 to 5,000 participants registered.

The Dresden police did not provide any official figures. According to the dpa reporter at the scene, a counter-protest around the same size also took place.

Lutz Bachmann, the leader of PEGIDA, the German abbreviation for Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West, announced that the 250th demonstration in Dresden on Sunday would be the last for the alliance.

He claimed they needed to pull the plug for health and financial reasons.

Bachmann stated from atop a lorry that PEGIDA would continue to exist with a new project, although he could not immediately provide more details. "We will come back with new formats," he said.

He asserted that they wanted to remain "an important cog in the machinery of the patriotic movement in Germany."

Many participants in the demonstration waved German flags. However, German Imperial flags and flags featuring the coat of arms of the Kingdom of Saxony, also used by the far-right Free Saxons, were also visible.

Audio messages from figures within the far-right network Neue Rechte (New Right), such as Götz Kubitschek or Jürgen Elsässer, were played at the rally.

Representatives from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) also spoke: The chairman of the AfD in the Brandenburg state parliament, Hans-Christoph Berndt, spoke live at the central Neumarkt (New Market) square in Dresden, as did the AfD member of the lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, Christina Baum.

PEGIDA was founded in October 2014. In 2015 and 2016, the group brought thousands of people to the streets in its founding location of Dresden, though it received far less support elsewhere.

In 2021, the domestic intelligence agency classified PEGIDA as an extremist movement. PEGIDA leader Bachmann, who has multiple previous convictions, was already described by the intelligence agency at that time as a right-wing extremist.