ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — The waving of German flags in Berlin by thousands of anti-immigration protestors was met by loud counter demonstrations on Sunday.
"We'll be giving it everything we have on Sunday, which means we'll be bringing massive amounts of loudspeakers with massive amounts of bass," Rosa Rave told Germany's Deutsche Welle. "We'll be turning out lots of people, and we're looking forward to protesting with them, loudly and confidently, and to confronting the Nazis from the AfD and their supporters."
Rave leads the counter protestors from 70 nightclubs, whose motto is "bass away the AfD." Rave was expecting to draw 14,000 counter protestors, who are responding to anti-immigration protests by the Alternative for Germany (AFD) party.
Alternative for Germany demonstrators holding placards reading "German grotesque: headscarf in schools, male professors in Leipzig, new beauty ideal: woman with full beard, welcome culture for Jewish hatred, governed by idiots" (left), "No Islam in Germany" (right) and German flags gather at the main station in Berlin to attend the "demonstration for the future of Germany" called by the far-right AfD in Berlin on May 27, 2018.
"We want to show everyone that along with millions of Germans across the country we are worried about Germany's future," said AFD leader Georg Pazderski prior to the protests.
The party's "Future of Germany" march began at the Brandenburg Gate and concluded midday at the main train station in Berlin. AFP reported 10,000 AfD supporters were expected, but organizers later scaled back expectations to "at least 2,500 to 5,000."
The anti-Islamic AfD is the largest opposition party in Germany with 92 seats. It filed a complaint earlier in May calling for stricter immigration laws.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU), which has an alliance with the Christian Socialist Union in Bavaria (CSU), and the Social Democratic Party (SPD) lead the government with 399 seats collectively.
Merkel has said there should be "no legal limit to refugee numbers."
The AfD said it was filing the lawsuit to expose the "tyranny of the unjust."
Conflicts in the Middle East have caused many to seek asylum in Europe — some take legal paths to immigration, while others have risked their lives to migrate via dangerous and sea smuggling routes.
Once in Europe's Schengen Area, migrants travelled to various countries seeking asylum.
In Germany, asylum seeking peaked at 890,000 in 2015. It dropped to 280,000 in 2016, and 186,644 in 2017 — due in part to a deal between the European Union and Turkey for the latter to provide shelter to refugees in exchange for billions of euros.
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