Pegida Switzerland

Pegida Switzerland was launched on 9 January 2015, two days after the Charlie Hebdo attacks, with Ignaz Bearth as spokesman.[2][3] It is the Swiss branch of the German movement Pegida (Patriotische Europäer gegen die Islamisierung des Abendlandes, in English Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West).[2] According to Marco Lüssi from 20 Minuten, Lutz Bachmann wrote in a Facebook post on 5 March 2016 that Ignaz Bearth "had agreed to leave Pegida months ago and is in no way a representative of our burgher movement."[4] This means that Bearth is no longer welcome as a speaker at any Pegida rallies anywhere in the world.[1]

Pegida Switzerland Pegida Schweiz Pegida Suisse Pegida Svizzera Pegida Svizra Pegida Helvetia
Leaders	Mike Spielmann Tobias Steiger
Founded	9 January 2015 (9 January 2015)
Headquarters	Dresden, Germany[1]
Ideology	Anti-Islamisation
Website
Official Facebook Page

There is some background to the story. In January 2015, Ignaz Bearth was accused by the media of having bought likes for his Facebook Page.[5] The reason: Reporter Sebastian Sele from Vice magazine claimed that when he used Stern magazine's Facebook like check tool[6] to see what it would show about Ignaz Bearth's Facebook Page, it showed that 43% of Ignaz Bearth's Facebook Page's likes were from India.[7] Ignaz Bearth agreed, for "the good of the movement," to step down from his role as spokesperson for Pegida Switzerland.[5]

Mike Spielmann and Tobias Steiger have now taken over the role of doing official communication with Dresden for Pegida Switzerland.[1] Spielmann and Steiger have plans to make Pegida Switzerland a full-fledged political party "in consultation with [Pegida leadership in] Dresden."[1]