BERLIN, Germany 

Nearly 30 percent of Germans polled by Stern magazine have said they believe anti-Islam demonstrations organized by the recently formed far-right PEGIDA are justifiable.

According to the poll conducted for Stern by the Forsa Institute and published online on Thursday, 29 percent of Germans said that Islam had such a big influence on the daily lives of German citizens that the recent anti-Islam demonstrations such as ones organized by the Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West, or PEGIDA, were justifiable.

A total of 13 percent of those polled also expressed a willingness to join the protests if they were organized in their cities.

Germany has witnessed an increase in suspicion and negative feelings towards Muslims in recent months as far right and right populist parties have sought to benefit from a growing fear of Islam and Muslims largely influenced by reports of murders and atrocities being committed by the Islamic State of Iraq, or ISIL in the Middle East.

The recently founded right-populist Alternative for Germany or AfD, has become the first major political party to express sympathy with protestors who have joined PEGIDA demonstrations which began in Dresden in October, although it has refrained from officially backing the PEGIDA movement. 

Forsa Institute’s Director Manfred Guellner said that AfD supporters have been the major group supporting PEGIDA and similar anti-Islam movements.

'Xenophobic group'

He said 71 percent of AfD supporters said they believed the anti-Islam protests were justifiable.

“These results once again confirm that the supporters of the AfD do represent not the mainstream of the society, but a fringe group with clear xenophobic tendencies,” he said.

AfD failed to pass the five percent threshold in elections in 2013, meaning it was unable to enter the federal parliament.

But recent polls show that it has increased its support to five percent and is likely to enter the parliament when the next elections are held in 2017.

The party won seven seats in European Parliament elections in May and entered state parliaments in Saxony, Brandenburg and Thuringia in 2014.

AfD’s anti-immigrant rhetoric has also increased pressure on  Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative CDU/CSU bloc.

'Cold hearts'

Merkel strongly criticized PEGIDA in her New Year’s speech on Wednesday and accused the movement of discriminating against people in Germany based on their skin color or religion.

"I would like to say the following to those who are participating in these demonstrations: Do not follow the calls of those organizers because their hearts are cold, often full of prejudice and even hate," Merkel said.

Forsa Institute’s poll revealed that while many Germans expressed concerns over what they perceive as "Islamization", the majority of them did not see any threat and 67 percent of those polled said they viewed talk of a "threat of Islamization" in Germany as an exaggeration.

The Forsa Institute interviewed 1,006 citizens on 18 December, selecting what it said was a representative group reflecting the demographic composition of the German population.

www.aa.com.tr/en