Progetto Protone

Germany’s Cologne Cathedral To Turn Off Lights In Protest At Anti-Muslim March

BERLIN, Jan 2 (Reuters) – One of Germany’s most famous  landmarks, Cologne Cathedral, will be plunged into darkness on  Monday evening in protest at a march by a growing grass-roots  anti-Muslim movement through the western German city, cathedral  authorities said.
The rise of the group, Patriotic Europeans Against the  Islamisation of the West (PEGIDA), has shaken Germany’s  political establishment, prompting Chancellor Angela Merkel to  say in her New Year address that its leaders were racists full  of hatred and citizens should beware being used.
PEGIDA’s last weekly rally in the eastern city of Dresden  attracted some 17,000 people, and the movement plans further  marches in other cities, including through the center of Cologne  on Monday night with a rally by the cathedral.
“PEGIDA is made up of an astonishingly broad mix of people,  ranging from those in the middle of society to racists and the  extreme right-wing,” Cathedral Dean Norbert Feldhoff told  Reuters.
“By switching off the floodlighting we want to make those on  the march stop and think. It is a challenge: consider who you  are marching alongside.”
Dresden’s famous Semperoper opera house also extinguished  its lights in protest during the last PEGIDA march in the city.
An opinion poll on Thursday found one German in eight would  join an anti-Muslim march if PEGIDA organized one in their home  town. Many people are concerned about the numbers of asylum  seekers entering Germany, which surged to about 200,000 in 2014,  four times the number in 2012. Net immigration has also hit a  two-decade high.
Anti-immigration parties, capitalizing on voters’  disenchantment with economic austerity, have surged in  popularity in a number of European countries, including France,  Britain, Sweden and the Netherlands.      (Reporting by Hans-Edzard Busemann; writing by Alexandra  Hudson; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)Articolo da  Reuters