People stage a protest against Anti-immigration party Alternative for Germany (AfD) in Berlin Thomson Reuters BERLIN (Reuters) - Some 5,000 supporters of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) marched through Berlin on Sunday, but they were heavily outnumbered by anti-AfD demonstrations, including one from the city's club scene which blasted techno music across the capital. Police, who were out in force to keep the groups apart, said the march organised by the anti-immigrant, anti-Islam Alternative for Germany (AfD) drew over 5,000 supporters while the counter-demonstrators numbered more than 25,000. Prominent AfD lawmaker Beatrix von Storch told Sunday’s demonstrators that “the vital question for us is: freedom or Islamization?”

Among the protesters was Silke Langmacker, an accountant, who carried a sign reading “Taxpayers First.”

“We are here to stop the uncontrolled influx into the German welfare system,” she said. The AfD rally of around 5,000 marched from the city’s central station to the Brandenburg Gate, but found themselves outnumbered five to one, and their chants of “we are the people” drowned out by the 25,000 counter-protesters and sound systems blasting music. Activists protest against racism on ships on the Spree river in Berlin (Markus Schreiber/AP) Groups organising protests against AfD included artists and a coalition of Berlin music clubs hoping to “blow away” the party with loud techno beats. It is now the largest of four opposition parties after the country’s two biggest parties finally agreed to continue a centrist “grand coalition” under Ms Merkel earlier this year.
An estimated 20,000 people protest against an Alternative for Germany rally attracting 5,000 demonstrators in Berlin; 2,000 police are deployed.