PEGIDA or Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West” is a German political movement based in Dresden. It has been organizing public demonstrations since October 2014, against what it considers to be the Islamization of Europe.
In December 2014, PEGIDA published a manifesto, in which it advocates for the protection of Germany’s Judeo-Christian culture and for tolerance toward assimilated and politically moderate Muslims. It calls Islamism a misogynist and violent ideology.PEGIDA believes that war refugees should be welcomed in Germany. It considers the current facilities for the housing of immigrants to be inadequate and partly inhumane. It advocates for a more decentralized distribution of facilities and a fairer allocation of immigrants among the countries of the European Union. It wants to model German immigration policies after those of the Netherlands and Switzerland and wants to facilitate integration of foreigners into German society. Current laws should be strictly enforced, the police should be given additional funding, and criminal refugees and immigrants should be promptly expelled. In addition, PEGIDA opposes constraints on political speech imposed by gender mainstreaming or political correctness.