German police have banned a rally by the anti-Islamic Pegida movement and other public gatherings planned for January 19 in the eastern city of Dresden, citing a terrorist threat.
Dresden police said on January 18 they had received information from federal and state authorities that there was a "concrete threat" against Pegida (Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the Occident).
Police said there had been calls for "assassins to mingle among the protesters…and to murder an individual member of the organizing team of the Pegida demonstrations."
The German daily Bild reported the threat targeted Pegida leader Lutz Bachmann.
Pegida has been organizing weekly rallies in Dresden since October.
A rally in Dresden on January 12 drew an estimated 25,000 people.
