CRI听力:Merkel Joins March for Tolerance and Against Growing Anti-Islam Protests

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has joined some 6,000 people in Berlin to promote religious tolerance and to commemorate the victims of last week's attacks by Islamic militants in Paris.

This happens after a new round of anti-Islam rallies launched by the group called Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the West, in the German city of Dresden.

Angela Merkel, German Chancellor, warns against xenophobia, ahead of attending a rally for tolerance

"Excluding population groups due to their faith or their origin is not according to the values of our liberal state and not according to our constitutionally established values and it is inhuman. Xenophobia, racism and extremism do not have a place here in this country."

The latest protest organized on Monday by the anti-immigration group drew a record 25-thousand supporters, with speakers citing the Paris attacks as proof of the danger posed by Islam.

Merkel has spoken out against the Group, accusing it of seeking to divide German society and capitalising on people's fears.

Germany has some 4 million Muslim residents, equivalent to about 5 percent of the population of 80 million.