The founder of Germany's anti-Islam movement, PEGIDA, will appear in
court on hate speech charges for branding refugees "cattle" and "scum"
on social media.
Lutz Bachmann, founder of the far-right "Patriotic Europeans Against
the Islamisation of the Occident" movement, was charged in October with
inciting racial hatred through a series of widely shared Facebook posts.
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Reporting for refugees in Germany - The Listening Post (Feature)
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The trial on Tuesday will be held under tight security in Dresden in
the former communist east, the birthplace of PEGIDA, which bitterly
opposes Chancellor Angela Merkel's liberal migration policy that brought
more than a million asylum seekers to Germany last year.
The court said the 43-year-old's comments, which date back to 2014,
also "disrupted public order" and constituted an "attack on the dignity"
of refugees.
If found guilty, Bachmann could face between three months and five years in jail.
The comments were published in September 2014, shortly before PEGIDA started life as a xenophobic Facebook group.
The group initially drew just a few hundred supporters to
demonstrations in Dresden before gaining strength, peaking with rallies
of up to 25,000 people in early 2015.
Also on Tuesday, police arrested five people near Dresden whom they
suspected of forming a far-right militant group, according to Reuters
news agency. The public prosecutor's office said they were preparing
attacks on asylum seekers using explosives.
'Criminal invaders'
Bachmann has repeatedly labelled the newcomers "criminal invaders"
while also railing against "traitor" politicians and the "liar press",
whom he blames for jointly promoting multiculturalism.
At PEGIDA's weekly rally in Dresden on Monday evening, Bachmann made
no reference to his trial but hurled a barb at the row over a German
comedian who has written a satirical poem about Turkish President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan.
Popular comic Jan Boehmermann could be convicted under the rarely
enforced section 103 of the criminal code - insulting organs or
representatives of foreign states.
A trained chef and head of a public relations agency, Bachmann has previously been convicted of drug, theft and assault charges.
In the late 1990s, he left Germany for South Africa to avoid a jail
term, but was extradited two years later and served more than 12 months
behind bars in Germany.
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German comedian faces criminal inquiry over Erdogan
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In the current heated political climate, the right-wing populist
Alternative for Germany (AfD) party also made strong gains in recent
state elections on the back of a protest vote against Merkel's open-door
policy on refugees.
This week, AfD deputy leader and member of the European parliament
Beatrix von Storch described Islam as "a political ideology that is
incompatible with the German constitution".
Aiman Mazyek, chairman of the Central Council of Muslims in Germany, accused the party of "riding a wave of Islamophobia.
"It is the first time since Hitler's Germany that there is a
party which discredits and existentially threatens an entire religious
community," he told AFP news agency.
Germany is home to about four million Muslims, and many of the country's most recent arrivals adhere to the faith.
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