PEGIDA

On 19 October 2015, 40,000 Pegida demonstrators gathered in front of the Semper Opera House in Dresden on the first anniversary to stand up for their Vaterland and to demonstrate against the flood of asylum seekers (Asylantenflut) promoted by Angela Merkel.

PEGIDA (Patriotische Europäer gegen die Islamisierung des Abendlandes = Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the Occident), initiated on 20 October 2014, but officially founded on 19 December 2014 in Dresden, was a large German pressure group of ordinary indigenous people opposing the Islamification, or Islamisation, of European nations, including the United Kingdom: meaning the growing number of Islamic immigrants, and their children who are often born in Europe.

History

20 PEGIDA demonstrations in January 2015 alone

Hundreds of thousands of people have taken part in their marches and protests. Although the first demonstration on 20 October 2014 started with 350 participants, on 5 January 2015 over 18,000 took part in Dresden On 12 January 2015, over 25,000 took part, and German as well as international legacy media was "shocked".

At a meeting in Dresden on 15 February 2015, representatives of Pegida offshoots from Germany, including LEGIDA (Leipziger Europäer gegen die Islamisierung des Abendlandes = Leipzig Europeans against the Islamization of the Occident) and BOGIDA (Bonner gegen Islamisierung des Abendlandes = Bonner against Islamization of the Occident), agreed with Pegida e. V. on ten demands, including:

• “Reformation of family policy as well as the education, pension and tax systems”,
• “Protection, preservation and respectful treatment of our culture and language”,
• rejection of free trade agreements such as TTIP,
• immediate deportation of rejected asylum seekers.

A march and meeting of over 2000 people took place in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in England on 28 February 2015. The meeting on 13 April 2015 with 10,000 to 15,000 participants was addressed by the Dutch politician Geert Wilders. PEGIDA organizers and speakers also included (among them many intellectuals and authors):

• Lutz Bachmann
• Akif Pirinçci (BOGIDA speech)
• Karl Schmitt
• Viktor Seibel
• Stephane Simon
• Udo Ulfkotte (BOGIDA speech)
• Jürgen Elsässer (LEGIDA speech)
• Götz Kubitschek (LEGIDA speech)
• Georg Immanuel Nagel (PEGIDA Vienna)

Social media

The organization was active at Facebook, Instagram and x.com.

Last demonstration

In October 2024, founder Lutz Bachmann announced that all goals had been achieved, that citizens, especially in the new federal states of the former GDR, had finally awaken and successfully resisted Islamization, Überfremdung (literally 'over-foreignization') through mass immigration of culturally alien, globalization, forced EU integration and wokeness, as the state elections triumph of the AfD in 2024 proved.

The last Pegida demonstration, the 250th, with around 1,500 participants, took place on 20 October 2024 on the 10th anniversary of the movement.

See also

• Anti-Islamization
• Direct democracy