Leaders appeal for tolerance at Brandenburg Gate Muslim vigil

In Berlin about 10,000 people have gathered before the Brandenburg Gate for a vigil organised by Germany's Muslim community.

At the event, attended by church leaders and politicians, including Chancellor Angela Merkel, began with a wreath-laying ceremony at the French embassy in the corner of Pariser Platz, before the Brandenburg Gate.

Mr Aiman Mazyek, head of the central committee of Muslims in Germany, said his community would "not allow our beliefs to be abused".

“We will not allow our society be torn apart by extremists who only want to sow hate,” he said.

President Joachim Gauck, a former pastor and civil rights campaigner, called the Paris attacks and Islamist extremism a “perversion of religion” and attempt to divide open societies.”

“They have achieved the opposite ... their hate is our motivation,” he said. “I thank all Muslim groups who have come here to say: ‘Terror, not in my name.‘”

He called their turning out for the event a “patriotic yes to our country”.

The vigil comes a day after a day after a record 25,000 turnout for an anti-Islam march in Dresden.

Speaking before the vigil, Ms Merkel criticised the anti-Islam Pegida group and its sympathisers: "To exclude groups of people because of their faith . . . isn't worthy of the free state in which we live. It isn't compatible with our essential values . . . it's humanly reprehensible.

“Xenophobia, racism, extremism have no place here. We are fighting to ensure that they don’t have a place elsewhere either.”

At its march on Monday, January 12th, Pegida presented a six-point plan demanding clear immigration rules, an end to “absurd” EU controls and direct democracy in Germany through referenda.

With emotions running high after last week's Paris shootings, an estimated 25,000 people marched with Pegida through Dresden as 7,000 anti-Pegida protestors staged sit-down blockades. In Leipzig, some 5,000 marchers with a Pegida sister organisation were drowned out by 30,000 demonstrators.

Angela Merkel said before the march that Islam "was a part of Germany", prompting Pegida to renew their warning of the supposed "Islamisation" of Europe, through Islamist violence and unchecked immigration.

"We've been laughed at and defamed . . . but Paris is just another reason to justify the existence of Pegida," said Mr Lutz Bachmann, head of the organisation. "We've stirred up quite a lot of dust and woken up quite a few people, putting issues on the table previously . . . only decided over people's heads."

For the first time Pegida presented political demands, including concrete legislation to steer migration, greater police spending, and the deportation of Islamists “who turn their backs on this country to fight in holy wars” as well as criminal non-nationals.

Mr Bachmann, an advertising and computer specialist with several criminal convictions, called for direct democracy at a federal level in Germany through referenda. He also called for an end to “vilification of Russia” and a halt to national parliaments’ loss of power to “absurd” EU control in Brussels.

He challenged the journalists in the crowd to “write whatever you want about us . . . we won’t set fire to your editorial offices or commit murder”.

As laughter echoed through the crowd, the Pegida leader called for a minute’s silence to remember “all victims of religious fanaticism in this world”.

The march was occasionally halted as left-wing groups staged sit-down protests, chanting: “We’re sick of you Pegida gang.” and “Expel nationalism from people’s heads”.

Large numbers of police kept apart the two camps, as ordinary Dresdners looked on with horrified fascination.

“I think Pegida’s plan is to attract as many people as they can now, with what sound like reasonable demands, before revealing their true agenda,” said Mr Wolfgang Bittner, a 65-year-old local.

‘Islam part of Germany’

Ahead of the march, Ms Merkel used a press conference in Berlin to recall a 2010 claim by a former German president that “Islam is a part of Germany”.

“I am the chancellor of all Germans, including all who live here long-term, regardless of their origin.”

As word of her remarks spread through the crowd in Dresden, the German leader was denounced by Pegida supports as a “Stasi slut”.

Frank Liebers, from Chemnitz, said he wasn’t “anti-foreigner, just anti-radical foreigners . . . who demand special rights here”.

“I don’t want to become a minority in my own country,” said the 67-year-old, holding a placard with a photoshopped image of Angela Merkel in a headscarf. “America is the reason we have all these wars, so America should take the war refugees.”

Crowds of young men attended the march waving German flags and wearing jackets associated with neo-Nazis.

A dozen caricaturists attacked Pegida via Facebook before the march for, in their view, capitalising on the Charlie Hebdo massacre.

“We French and Francophone illustrators are outraged by the murder of our friends, we are disgusted that right-wing forces are trying to instrumentalise this for their own ends,” they wrote in their petition.

Additional reporting: Agencies