Rembrandt Clancy summarizes the crowd estimates tonight from Dresden:

According to Kopp Online, the police estimate for the number of people at the march is 25,000. However, the organisers in Dresden are claiming 40,000 according to several sources, all of which have the same wording; for example, MWNews.

He has also translated this article from Compact Magazine:

Over 40,000 at PEGIDA in Dresden by Jürgen Elsässer

12 January 1015 While the Tagesschaue reports just “several thousand’ at the PEGIDA demonstration in Dresden, one can read the following for himself on the Live-Ticker of the Leipziger Volkszeitung: There are 35,000! Since the established media mostly depress the numbers, one can easily assume over 40,000 participants. This is a huge success! The Dresdeners are not allowing themselves to be intimidated by the block parties. The success is to be assessed even more highly, when today in the nearby city of Leipzig over 4,000 were present at the PEGIDA offshoot, LEGIDA, and marched at the same time.

Prior to the march there was an attempt by the Leipzig Public Order Office to forbid the display of Mohammed cartoons at LEGIDA, although over the weekend, everywhere around the world, such Charlie Hebdo cartoons were to be seen at solidarity demonstrations. Through an appeal to the court by a COMPACT reader, the city was forced to rescind this scandalous order. Throughout the entire country there were also demonstrations against PEGIDA this Monday evening. In Leipzig alone there are supposed to have been 30,000. But interestingly, a segmentation is apparent with anti-PEGIDA: While left-wing perpetrators of violence went on the rampage in Leipzig and even attacked the police, contributors to media interviews also declare themselves in favour of a dialogue with PEGIDA. It would be important to take up this offer in order to bring together all the forces of reason among the people.

For links to previous articles about PEGIDA (Patriotische Europäer Gegen die Islamisierung des Abendlandes, Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West) and related movements, see the PEGIDA Archives.

Photo © Snaphanen.