Alwaght- Followers the extremist anti-Islam group Pegida staged a march in Birmingham as local MPs said costly hate rallies” have no place in the city.
Similar rallies were held in France and the Netherlands where clashes broke out. About 200 demonstrators gathered for the inaugural Pegida rally in the UK – half as many as expected by police – which took place on an industrial estate several kilometers from the city center.
Many demonstrators held placards featuring Donald Trump, saying: “Trump is right” – a possible reference to the Republican candidate for the US presidential election’s controversial call for a halt on Muslim immigration to the US.
Addressing a crowd of about 150 Pegida supporters, Robinson Tommy, the former EDL leader who organized the Pegida UK rally said similar rallies were held in Germany, in Holland, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Belgium, and Poland.
Pegida UK, named after the German anti-Islam group that emerged in Dresden two years ago, was founded by Robinson in January this year. Its official leader is former Ukip parliamentary candidate Paul Weston, who said on Saturday that he wanted to get 100,000 people out on the streets by the end of the year.
Khalid Mahmood, the MP for Birmingham Perry Barr said the plans to stage monthly rallies could result in violence and that he would be calling on the chief executive of Birmingham city council, Mark Rogers, to look into whether the protests threatened the safety of families using the city center for weekend shopping.
Jess Phillips, the Labor MP for Birmingham Yardley, said Robinson “should get the message from the gross overestimation of attendance at his rally this week” and the relative strength of the anti-fascist movement.
Muhammad Afzal, chairman of Birmingham central mosque and a Labor councilor, said: “Years ago they protested against the Jews, then the Irish, then black people and now against Muslims. We condemn these extremists no matter where they come from.
“Islam is a very peaceful religion. We are quite happy to have a dialogue with them, but just spending public sector money [on policing the rallies], when there are a lot of cuts is not fair,” he said.