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GERMANY’S ANTI-ISLAMIC, anti-immigrant Pegida movement announced yesterday it is seeking to found a political party but stressed it would not seek to draw votes from populist far-right group AfD.
The new grouping would be called the Popular Party for Freedom and Direct Democracy, or the FDDV by its German acronym, movement head Lutz Bachmann said at a meeting in Dresden, Pegida’s eastern stronghold.
Bachmann – convicted and fined in May for inciting racial hatred by branding refugees “cattle” and “scum” on social media – insisted he did not intend to stand for the leadership.
Pegida (Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the West) is a broad European network of loosely linked groups opposed to what they call the “Islamisation of Europe”.
The network launched an Irish branch in Dublin in February of year – an event that was met with a strong counter-demonstration by opposing groups.
Violence broke out following the counter-demonstration, with both sides clashing and gardaí becoming involved.
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The move to form a party comes with authorities mulling a ban for the original association which spawned Pegida over fears of growing extremism.
Bachmann insisted the new party would not seek to overshadow the Alternative for Germany (AfD), which has polled at more than 10% support in recent months.
The AfD was founded as a eurosceptic protest party in 2013 but now mainly rails against Islam and Germany’s openness to refugees, which last year brought more than one million asylum seekers to Europe’s top economy.
“We shall support the AfD in the next elections (scheduled for 2017) and shall only field candidates in a limited number of constituencies,” Bachmann said.
He added that relations between the two far-right movements were mostly good and that “only together” could they serve their mutual cause.
Cracks in the AfD have emerged in recent months, with a leadership split deepening after a row over anti-Semitic comments by one of the party’s lawmakers, who labelled Holocaust deniers “dissidents”.
There are also differences within the AfD on whether to embrace Pegida or keep the movement at arm’s length.
There has never been freedom of the press….There has always been an agenda. Even here in Ireland the government have a say over articles to be published, the style book for example.
Ordinary people are fine there, there is a movement seeking justice for the victims of the crackdown on the Morsi supporters in the aftermath of the coup, called R4BIA, the name of the camp where many MB supporters were murdered, it’s symbolized by holding the hand up and tucking the thumb into the palm, the movement has been outlawed and anyone caught using the gesture can face imprisonment.
Seamus ffs. I know that big media has been corrupted in all countries including here but if you think there is no freedom of the press or freedom of expression in Ireland you are deluded.
I am a full supporter of press freedom but questions hang over Al Jazeera and it’s place in a free press. This time last year 22 of it’s journalists resigned having been instructed to give the MB good coverage no matter what the truth was.
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