Up to 8,000 People Attend Pegida Anti-Refugee Rally in Germany's Dresden

Up to 8,000 people took part in an anti-refugee rally organized by Germany's anti-Islamization Pegida movement in the city of Dresden, local media reported Tuesday.

BERLIN (Sputnik) — The German newspaper Die Welt reported, citing political sources, that between 6,000 and 8,000 people gathered in the capital of the German state of Saxony at the Pegida rally on Monday.

On the same day, up to 4,000 Pegida opponents gathered near Dresden's opera house, the Semperoper, where Pegida had previously held rallies.

Opponents of the anti-immigration right-wing movement PEGIDA (Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West) gather in Dresden, Germany

© REUTERS / Hannibal Hanschke

Water cannons and police officers from other regions were deployed in Dresden to deal with possible clashes between the two groups, however, no accidents took place.

Pegida, an acronym for Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West, began organizing rallies in its home city of Dresden in October 2014, attracting hundreds, and later thousands, of supporters.