PEGIDA, or Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West,
It seems there are two schools of thought in Germany about the fear of Europe's Islamization group PEGIDA. Those who see the group as racist and those who don't.
PEGIDA protesters are concerned that many Islamic asylum seekers are really "economic refugees" seeking to take advantage of Germany's generous welfare system, others are worried that the high intake of migrants is just too high for Germany's good.
Angela Merkel says that Germany's door should be kept wide open to everyone and that PEGIDA organizers had "prejudice, coldness and even hatred in their hearts."
In Cologne, 250 PEGIDA supporters turned up only to be outnumbered 10 to 1 by counter-demonstrators and authorities switched off the lights of the city's cathedral in protest. In Dresden Volkswagon plunged their factory into darkness to show "the company stands for an open, free and democratic society."
But it can't be denied that Germany's immigration policy is a worry to many following the surge in the number of asylum seekers - 200,000 new arrivals in 2014, which was four times the total for 2012. And that's why there were 17,000 protesters outside Dresden's opera house just before Christmas and many more protests are being planned for the future.
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