Posted on December 31, 2015

Amazon Donates Profits from Far-Right Anthem to Refugees

AFP, December 31, 2015

Online retail giant Amazon said on Thursday it will donate the profits from the online purchase of a tune released by the far-right anti-migrant PEGIDA movement to refugees in Germany.

Entitled “Gemeinsam sind wir stark”–German for “Together we are strong”–the instrumental, which has no lyrics, was released over Christmas.

The anthem drew close to 180,000 views on YouTube, and surged on Amazon.de’s music chart to become its bestselling MP3 download, knocking Adele’s “Hello” to number two.

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PEGIDA, an acronym for Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident (PEGIDA), had said profits from the sale would be given to homeless Germans.

But Amazon placed a message on its German webpage, saying profits from its sale would be donated to help hundreds of thousands of migrants, many fleeing the Syrian civil war, who have arrived in Germany over the past year.

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