Hundreds take to the streets for anti-Islam group PEGIDA's first march in Austria

(Image credit: Twitter.com/UnsereZeitung)

The first rally held in Austria by PEGIDA, the anti-Islam movement started in Germany, brought 250 supporters and just as many counter-demonstrators to the streets of Vienna on Monday.

See more

They were met by 1,200 officers dispatched to keep the peace, Reuters reports. Earlier in the day, thousands marched against PEGIDA (Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West), and on Friday, violence broke out when left-wing activists protested an annual ball that attracts right-wing figures.

The spokesman for the Austrian branch of PEGIDA, 28-year-old student Georg Immanuel Nagel, told Die Presse he wanted to see an end to "the appeasement policy" for the 500,000 or so Muslims that live in Austria. He also said he wants to see laws enacted that ban "Islamism" so people who promote Sharia law can be punished like those who extol Nazism.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Continue reading for free

We hope you're enjoying The Week's refreshingly open-minded journalism.

Subscribed to The Week? Register your account with the same email as your subscription.

Catherine Garcia

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.