ANTI-ISLAM ACTIVIST ATTACKS GERMAN MARKET, CHANTS ‘BURN THE QURAN’
A Prophet Muhammad cartoon controversy spread to Germany as an anti-Islam protest turned violent Saturday, with a man dousing counters and food stalls at a busy outdoor market in the city of Dresden with gasoline and setting them on fire. The incident occurred as a few hundred people attended a demonstration against Islam and multiculturalism in the city.
The unidentified attacker, described by police as a 29-year-old German man, also threw objects at nearby shops and tossed a firework into the crowd, causing several people to be treated for minor injuries. The demonstration had been called by the far-right group PEGIDA (Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West), which has seen significant growth in recent months amid growing anti-migrant sentiment in Germany and other parts of the European Union.
The escalation of the protest led to Police shut off the market and deployed extra forces to the area as the city’s police chief, Lutz Mohaupt, urged calm and condemned the violence, stating that ‘free expression must not lead to hate, violence, or incitement to hatred.’ Several thousand people were seen attending the protest, with many more watching TV and online as the events unfolded.
The anti-Islam activist shouted ‘Burn the Quran!’ as a demonstration of his support for the petition, which aims to ban the construction of new mosques in the city. He was later arrested by the police and taken into custody without resistance.
