The founder of Germany’s anti-Islam movement Pegida went on trial yesterday for inciting hatred against foreigners after he referred to refugees as “cattle”, “garbage”, and a “dirty bunch” on Facebook last year.
Lutz Bachmann – the founder of Pegida, or Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West – appeared in a Dresden court alongside his wife after being charged in October.
Both wore black contraptions covering their eyes.
Prosecutors consider Bachmann’s posts to be maliciously derisive, inciteful of hatred against foreigners, disruptive of the public order and an attack on the dignity of refugees.
He could receive up to five years in prison.
Bachmann’s lawyer said yesterday that the case should be thrown out, arguing that someone else had posted the offensive comments from the defendant’s account and that prosecutors had failed to request the relevant information from Facebook.
Dresden is the birthplace of Pegida, which is bitterly opposed to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open-door refugee policy and holds weekly rallies in opposition to what its members perceive as the Islamisation of German society by Muslim immigrants.
Bachmann regularly uses social media to convey Pegida’s main messages: that refugees are “criminal invaders” and that the “lying press” is colluding with the government to promote a romanticised version of multiculturalism.
Bachmann has dismissed the charges against him as a politically motivated attempt to “discredit my person and Pegida”, he said on Facebook when the trial was announced.
At the height of the scandal, Bachmann apologised for the posts, referring to them as “ill-considered comments I wouldn’t make in the same way today”.
The Pegida leader was on probation when he made the comments.
He has a criminal record that includes aggravated theft, dealing cocaine, drink-driving and failure to pay child support.
Protesters – both in favour of Pegida’s cause and against – gathered outside the Dresden court yesterday, holding banners that said “Freedom for Lutz Bachmann” and “Bachmann off to jail”.
The court’s 100 seats were all taken and several dozen attendees were forced to remain outside.
Pegida almost disappeared from Germany’s political scene last year amid a series of high-profile resignations by its leaders, including Bachmann.
Other scandals included the surfacing of “selfies” in which Bachmann is seen wearing a Hitler moustache and hairstyle.
The group was given a new lease of life in the wake of the November terrorist attacks in Paris and as migration into Europe reached new highs, but has failed to regain the momentum it had early last year.