Thousands of anti-racism protesters took to streets late Monday across Germany to express opposition to anti-Islam movement, PEGIDA.

Thousands of anti-racism protesters took to streets late Monday across Germany to express opposition to anti-Islam movement, PEGIDA.

The so-called “Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West”, which is known as PEGIDA, is a German organization formed in 2014 and aimed at preventing what it considers to be the” Islamization of the Western world.”

A sum of 17,000 anti-racism demonstrators took part in protests in the German cities, AFP reported.

In Munich, where anti-PEGIDA mobilization has been strong for several weeks, around 10,000 people gathered, according to police.

Around a thousand people demonstrated in the Bavarian cities of Wuerzburg and Nuremberg, the German news agency DPA reported. Protests were also organized in Berlin and Duesseldorf, and around 6,000 people were on the streets in Magdeburg.

On Monday, PEGIDA -- "Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident" -- vowed it would rally again next week after a march was cancelled over a threat.

Police in Dresden, where the PEGIDA marches began in October, had banned all public open-air gatherings within city limits for Monday, citing the "concrete threat" of an assassination attempt against one of the group's leaders Lutz Bachmann.