Around 18,000 people have taken part in an anti-Islam rally in the German city of Dresden despite a plea by Chancellor Angela Merkel to reject the growing protests, which she has branded racist.
While the demonstration was the biggest so far, similar far-right rallies held in other German cities have been met by much bigger counter-protests.
Lights around the country were switched off in protest at the anti-immigrant demonstrations – monuments in Dresden were thrown into darkness along with Cologne Cathedral and Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate.