Immigrant shopkeepers in the eastern German city of Halle, fearful for their future after the virulently anti-immigrant AfD party scored a landslide victory in recent regional elections, staged a one-day strike Thursday.
"Because of the AfD and the racism -- well, I just can't stay here in Halle," Mohamad-Samer, who works at a fast-food restaurant that shut as part of the demonstration and did not want to give his last name, told AFP.
"And everyone else -- all the Syrians, all the foreigners -- they cannot stay here either," said the 29-year-old who has lived in the city for three years.
Barber shops, restaurants and small retail shops -- about 30 businesses in total -- all joined the demonstration, pulling down their shutters and marking off their businesses with red-and-white tape.
The coordinated action, dubbed "Halle Without Us?", was aimed at showing how vital immigrants are for the life of this mid-sized city in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt.
The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which campaigned on pledges of mass deportations and touted the slogan "Remigration now!", won nearly 44 percent of the vote in September's state election.
Around 200 people also gathered in the market square on Thursday to speak out against the growing uncertainty faced by immigrants and refugees in Saxony-Anhalt.
Dalal Mirzo, one of the organisers, said daily racism and attacks had increased since the vote.
"Thirty shops joined in, but many others didn't dare to participate," said Mirzo, 38, an immigrant from Syria who settled in Halle 11 years ago.
"They are afraid because a significant number of their customers are far-right extremists, and they fear facing repercussions."
Fadi Darwish, who co-owns a shisha bar with his father, said he wasn't necessarily worried about his own future because of the AfD: "I know that if I was able to build something from scratch here, I could do the same thing somewhere else."
But Darwish, 21, who has lived in Halle for 13 years, said he hopes that his neighbours realise that the vast majority of Arab immigrants are hard-working people who contribute to the community.
"I hope that others -- the German people -- understand that, without us, many things wouldn't function properly," he told AFP in front of his closed shop.
Immigrant business owners in the nearby city of Magdeburg, the state capital, staged a similar demonstration just before the election.
During his campaign, AfD firebrand regional lead candidate Ulrich Siegmund promised to deport all foreigners residing in the state illegally once he takes power -- though it remains uncertain if he will, since the AfD fell just short of an outright majority.
For decades, the population across the former communist East Germany -- including Saxony-Anhalt -- has been ageing and shrinking.
Saxony-Anhalt has lost a quarter of its population since German reunification in 1990.
"We are in a state that is grappling with a profound demographic shift, and everything would grind to a halt if people were to leave," said Mamad Mohamad, a regional Greens Party MP who joined the protesters.
He told AFP that he receives daily messages from people who are making plans to leave Saxony-Anhalt.
"I have lived here for 30 years, and for 30 years we have faced racism and discrimination in Germany," he said.
"But since the election, this racism has become overt -— on the streets, at work, in schools, in our daily lives," he said. "It has become simply unbearable for people."
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