The 2018 Chemnitz protests took place in Chemnitz, in the German state of Saxony. In the early morning of 26 August, after a festival celebrating the city's founding, a fight broke out resulting in the death of a German man and serious injuries to two other people. Two Kurdish immigrants, one from Iraq and the other from Syria, were named as suspects. The incident reignited the tensions surrounding immigration to Germany, which had been ongoing since 2015, and the European migrant crisis. In response, mass protests against immigration were ignited by far-right groups. The protests spawned riots and were followed by counter-demonstrations.
The Brückenstraße in Chemnitz, where the stabbing attack and several protests occurred
Protesters in Chemnitz on 27 August 2018. The banner demands Kriminelle Ausländer raus! ("Criminal foreigners out!").
Chemnitz is the third-largest city in the German state of Saxony after Leipzig and Dresden. Chemnitz is the third-largest city in the Thuringian-Upper Saxon dialect area after Leipzig and Dresden. It is the fifth largest city in the area of former East Germany after (East) Berlin, Leipzig, Dresden and Halle. The city is part of the Central German Metropolitan Region, and lies in the middle of a string of cities sitting in the densely populated northern foreland of the Elster and Ore Mountains, stretching from Plauen in the southwest via Zwickau, Chemnitz and Freiberg to Dresden in the northeast.
Image: Altes und Neues Rathaus am Chemnitzer Marktplatz 2015
Image: Schloßkirche am Schloßteich
Image: Burg Rabenstein (Chemnitz). IMG 2267WI
Image: Karl Marx Monument in Chemnitz (Karl Marx Stadt)