Leipzig City, Regional Authorities Clash Over Ban on Pegida Demonstration

Authorities in the eastern German city of Leipzig have canceled a weekly protest meeting of Legida, a more radical sister organization of the national anti-immigration protest group Pegida, citing "security reasons."

Leipzig Mayor Burkhard Jung said that the cancellation of the Monday event was the result of the city's inability to provide sufficient police security. However, a spokesperson for the state of Saxony's Interior Ministry noted that officers are available, and that other measures could be taken to limit the number of participants without banning the event outright.

"There are around 1,000 officers available to cover the march," an Interior Ministry spokesman cited by Deutsche Welle stated. "If the city considers this to be insufficient, they could enforce restrictions on the organizers and just allow rallies."

The confusion between local and regional levels was further exacerbated by Mayor Burkhard's failure to disclose whether a planned counter-demonstration to Legida would be permitted.

Legida, an acronym roughly standing for "Leipzig Against the Islamization of the West," is described as a more radical offshoot of Pegida, the anti-immigration group "Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West." The latter had started up in eastern Germany before spreading to several other countries in Europe, including Denmark, Norway, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. The movement was briefly invigorated following the Paris terror attacks on the office of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, before collapsing into disarray late last month after photos of co-founder Lutz Bachmann posing as an Adolf Hitler lookalike were revealed. He was further ostracized for spouting racist and incendiary anti-immigrant comments on his Facebook account.

Legida has demonstrated in Leipzig on three occasions in the past, although its latest event on January 31 gathered only 1,500 people, a dramatic drop in numbers compared to previous gatherings. Marches in the city have been known in the past for their high levels of violence, vandalism and outright street brawls between the demonstrators, police and counter-protestors.

Elements of the leadership of Pegida have jumped ship to launch alternative organizations in an attempt to distance themselves from the racist elements within the group. Former spokeswoman Kathrin Oertel has launched a conservative pressure group –the "Direct Democracy for Europe" initiative, focusing on conservative values rather than anti-immigration sentiments.