As the COVID-19 pandemic is impacting public life across the globe, the far-right “Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the Occident” (PEGIDA) which emerged from the eastern German city of Dresden has difficulties to conform with the new safety and health regulations. Since autumn 2014, PEGIDA has regularly mobilized street protests against the alleged increasing influence of Islam in Europe, the German and European political establishment, as well as the media.
Disruption of the ritual
PEGIDA had announced one of its regular demonstrations for Monday, 16 March 2020. But when the government of the state of Saxony decided to cancel all events with more than 1,000 participants on 12 March, the city of Dresden tried to convince the PEGIDA organizers to suspend the protest. Unimpressed by the safety and health measures adopted all over Europe already at that point, PEGIDA insisted on going ahead with the demonstration anyway, supposedly applying additional safety measures.
In light of the aggravating situation over the following days, the city administration finally forbade the demonstration. Again unimpressed, PEGIDA co-founder Lutz Bachmann defiantly announced a “patriotic week” full of “spontaneous appearances” in Dresden and neighboring cities in a YouTube video on 13 March.
