Anti-Islam March News: 'We're Not Xenophobic,' Says Group After German March Canceled

An organizer of the Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West (PEGIDA) has denied that the group is "xenophobic" after its rally in Dresden was cancelled earlier this week following threats against its main organizer, Deutsche Welle reported.

Kathrin Oertel claimed that most people had a "false impression" that PEGIDA is hostile to foreigners. "We really are not a xenophobic organization," she said, as quoted by Deutsche Welle.

Oertel added that the group seeks to "shake things up" rather than arouse anti-immigrant feeling. "We want to highlight the shortcomings of our government in recent years," she said.

Oertel's TV appearance came just hours after Monday's march was called off because of death threats to PEGIDA founder Lutz Bachmann.

However, Oertel insisted that the group will continue fighting for their cause despite the ban. "We will continue to put pressure on the government," she said.

Death threats were made to Bachmann amid warnings from foreign intelligence services that the Berlin and Dresden train stations have become likely targets for terrorist assaults.

Because of the "concrete threat against a member" of PEGIDA, the chief of police in Dresden issued a blanket ban. All demonstrations, including counter-rallies, have been temporarily banned in the city.

"On analyzing the current situation, we now no longer believe this is an abstract danger, but rather a concrete one," said Dresden police chief Dieter Kroll.

Authorities have yet to have a clue on who the potential attackers are, but officials noted the threat echoed in a recent tweet in Arabic identifying PEGIDA as an "enemy of Islam."

The organization, whose demonstration drew 25,000 people five days after the terror attacks in Paris, told supporters to stay at home and not to travel to Dresden on Monday.

"It is a grave infringement on freedom of opinion and the right to assembly, if it is possible for terrorist forces to lever out our constitutionally guaranteed right, but your safety comes first," the group wrote on its Facebook page.

PEGIDA also asked "all Europeans who are for freedom of opinion and against religious fanaticism of any kind" to display a lighted candle in their window and wave their national flag out their window at the planned time of Monday's march.