Police in the German city of Leipzig made 211 arrests after far-right supporters vandalised buildings and burned vehicles on the fringes of an “anti-Islamisation” rally. The unrest came as thousands of activists protested peacefully. They blame Germany’s record influx of refugees for sexual violence against women at New Year’s Eve festivities. Officials say the perpetrators of assaults in Cologne were almost exclusively from a migrant background. Apparent retaliatory attacks in the cathedral city on Sunday, in which at least 11 people from Pakistan, Syria and Guinea were hurt, were condemned by the government as inexcusable.
Some 2,000 supporters of Legida, the Leipzig version of the Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West movement (Pegida), marched through the city. They vented their anger at Chancellor Angela Merkel over her government’s open-door policy on refugees.