Angela Merkel to Join Muslim Tolerance Rally Amid Spiraling Anti-Islam Protests

German Chancellor Angela Merkel says she will join a Muslim community rally Tuesday to foster religious tolerance and stave off rising Islamaphobia in the wake of last week’s terror attacks in Paris.

Merkel insisted Monday that “Islam belongs to Germany,” as she attempts to rein in a burgeoning right-wing German protest movement dubbed “Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident,” or Pegida, reports AFP.

Pegida drew an unprecedented 25,000 protesters to its 12th weekly march in Dresden on Monday, though some 100,000 people attended counter-demonstrations across Germany.

“Germany wants peaceful coexistence of Muslims and members of other religions,” Merkal told a joint press conference with Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on Monday.

The tolerance event is organized by the Central Council of Muslims in Germany with the slogan “Let’s be there for each other. Terror: not in our name!”

[AFP]