Largest anti-Islam rally expected in Germany with 100,000 supporters

An estimated 100,000 supporters of the anti-Islam Pegida movement will rally Wednesday in the east German city of Leipzig, in what is expected to be the largest such protest march to date.

There are 19 counter-demonstrations planned across the city.

A total of 4,000 police officers will oversee the protests, the largest deployment in Leipzig since German reunification.

Local authorities have banned Pegida supporters from marching along specific streets in the city centre where residents marched in 1989 before the collapse of the Germany Democratic Republic.

The Leipzig march comes two days after Pegida's weekly rally in Dresden - which drew 25,000 last Monday - was cancelled because of death threats allegedly received by controversial founder Lutz Bachmann.

Pegida, an acronym that loosely translates to Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West, has laid out a six-point plan including more selective immigration policies.