Mon 26 August 2019:
Tens of thousands of people joined the “Unteilbar” demo against racism in Saxony, eastern Germany, where the far-right has enjoyed major gains. There was no violence, despite claims by the far-right AfD in advance.
The eastern state of Saxony has long had a problem with far-right groups. Dresden is also the cradle of the Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West (PEGIDA) anti-immigration, anti-Islam movement, and the state of Saxony is a stronghold of the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany party (AfD). In Brandenburg, the state surrounding Berlin, the AfD and the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) are neck and neck, according to a survey conducted by the broadcaster ARD released last week.
#Unteilbar is kicking off in Dresden, Saxony’s capital. Organizers anticipate between 10,000-20,000 people.
The protest against racism and the far-right comes one week before state elections here. The populist AfD is polling a strong second. pic.twitter.com/ljSrK12OIZ
— William Noah Glucroft (@wnglucroft) August 24, 2019
According to the poll, the SPD and the AfD would both win 22% of votes in that state. Elections are to be held in Brandenburg and neighboring Saxony on Sept. 1. If a strong showing by the AfD is confirmed in both regional polls, it could throw Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition into a new crisis by potentially heightening calls for the SPD to pull the plug on the partnership. The AfD entered Germany’s national parliament for the first time in 2017 as the third-largest party, helped by voter anger at Merkel’s decision to welcome asylum seekers from the Middle East and Africa.
Saturday’s protest comes ahead of state parliament elections in Saxony and Brandenburg on September 1, and in the state of Thuringia on October 27.
The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has been polling on par with, and at times higher than, the parties in Merkel’s ruling coalition, and is expected to make large gains. But since other parties have already ruled out forming a coalition with the AfD, it is unlikely that it will form part of the government.
Right-wing views have become increasingly widespread there in recent years and many voters have defected from both the Chancellor Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) and Die Linke in favor of the anti-immigration agenda of the AfD. Far-right extremists carried out over 1,200 attacks in the eastern German states in 2018, revealing a significant increase, according to a report released in April.
Regarding the growth of far-right extremism, the risk of becoming a victim of a hate crime is 10 times higher for immigrants residing in cities in eastern Germany, according to another study. The report, released by the Leibniz Center for European Economic Research, a nonprofit institute based in Mannheim, found that the amount of experience local people share with immigrants is an important factor in understanding the growing xenophobia and hate crimes in the country.
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