BERLIN: A record 17,000 anti-Islamic protesters rallied for their tenth demonstration in as many weeks Monday in eastern Germany, celebrating the rise of their far-right populist movement by singing Christmas carols.

Germany has for weeks grappled with the emergence of the 'Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident' or PEGIDA, whose ranks in the city of Dresden have swelled rapidly from just a few hundred in October.