Germany slams 'extremists' anti-refugee PEGIDA group
German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere has slammed a “hard right-wing extremist” group planning to hold a demonstration against the arrival of refugees fleeing war and unrest in their countries.
De Maiziere on Sunday warned Germans to keep their distance from the anti-refugee and anti-Islam PEGIDA group, which is expected to hold a rally in the city of Dresden on Monday.
He added that the PEGIDA tended to make “blanket references to asylum seekers as criminals” and that Germany had no room for “hate” and “violence.”
The minister also called on Germans to avoid following groups seeking to inject “hatred” or “poison” into the country.
De Maiziere also said attacks against asylum seekers had tripled since last year, describing the situation as “horrifying.”
Talk of the anti-refugee demonstration comes a day after the pro-refugee mayor candidate of the western German city of Cologne, Henriette Reker, was injured in a stabbing attack, apparently in protest against the city’s policies to receive refugees. A number of others were also injured in the attack.
On Sunday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu during a visit to Turkey, to discuss the refugee crisis with Ankara, as a large number of refugees use Turkey as a gateway to enter European Union (EU) countries.
Germany has become top destination for hundreds of thousands of people fleeing violence in Syria and elsewhere in Middle East and North Africa. The country is expecting up to a million refugees in 2015, up from 200,000 last year.
The European country is expecting to receive between 800,000 and a million refugees this year, with Merkel saying the country "can do it."
Local authorities, however, have repeatedly said they are not ready to deal with the massive influx of refugees.
According to the International Organization for Migration, more than 700,000 people fleeing foreign-backed wars, terrorism, and unrest in the Middle East and North Africa have arrived at European shores this year after crossing the sea from Turkey to Greece and across the Mediterranean to Italy.
More than 3,000 have died or gone missing trying to reach the continent.
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