PEGIDA

Turkey's foreign ministry said Tuesday it summoned the Dutch ambassador following a demonstration targeting Islam's holy book, days after a similar protest in Sweden tensed relations.

Dresden, Germany (dpa) - Thousands of supporters of the anti-migrant organization Pegida gathered in the east German city of Dresden to celebrate the second anniversary of the group's founding Sunday.

According to the research group Durchgezaehlt, between 6500 and 8500 people gathered at Dresden's Theaterplatz, with several hundred counterdemonstrators protesting some distance away.

The founder of Germany's xenophobic and anti-Islamic Pegida movement was May 3 convicted of inciting racial hatred and fined nearly 10,000 euros for branding refugees "cattle" and "scum" on social media.

A group of Pakistanis and a Syrian were violently attacked by about 20 unknown assailants late on Jan. 10 in the German city of Cologne, police said.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has proposed that asylum seekers on probation or who committed any kind of crime should be sent back to their countries of origin.

This comes after multiple sex attacks on women in the city of Cologne and elsewhere that took place on New Year's Eve and that were reportedly committed by men of North African and Arab appearance.

The German anti-Islam movement PEGIDA staged its biggest rally in months on Oct. 19, sparked into fresh life on its first anniversary by anger at the government's decision to take in hundreds of thousands of migrants from the Middle East. 

All religions, beliefs and cultures are intertwined, Turkey?s Religious Affairs Directorate (Diyanet) head Mehmet Görmez said on April 11, adding with ?regret? that mankind is failing to manage this multiculturalism.

Bulgaria is an attractive place for foreign companies, but corruption and lack of legal security drives investors back, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has said.

In an interview with the website Dnevnik.bg ahead of his March 10 visit, he urges Sofia to update the investment climate and boost judicial reform.

German anti-Islam movement LEGIDA took on the streets of Leipzig with around 15,000 protesters on Wednesday evening.

The leader of Germany's "anti-Islamisation" movement PEGIDA has stepped down after newspapers published a photo showing him apparently posing with Hitler-style toothbrush moustache.

In its online edition, Germany's Dresdner Morgenpost newspaper reproduced a picture which it claimed was from Bachmann's Facebook profile showing him posing in the style of Adolf Hitler.