Merkel tells Germans not to attend anti-Islam rallies

BERLIN (AP) — German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday warned the country’s citizens not to participate in weekly anti-Islam rallies that have attracted growing numbers of supporters in the eastern German city of Dresden. Merkel condemned the organizers of the protests and said they were driven by prejudices and hatred against foreigners.

The chancellor used unusually direct words in her New Year’s speech on Wednesday for the rallies organized by a group calling itself Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the West, or PEGIDA which have been attended by thousands.

The number of participants at PEGIDA’s weekly demonstrations in Dresden, a region that has few immigrants or Muslims, has swelled from a few hundred in October to more than 17,000 in December. Similar groups elsewhere haven’t mobilized anywhere near as many people, and there have also been large protests against them.

Merkel’s speech was released in print early Wednesday and will be shown on public television in the evening.