Cologne - Far-left protesters set up the first road blocks in Cologne to prevent a scheduled far-right anti-Islam rally in the city on Saturday.

Elsewhere in the city, police secured access to the site where the demonstration is planned. However, the scene was dominated by peaceful demonstrators streaming into the city in large numbers to protest against the right-wing rally.

Several hundred police forces were deployed across the city ahead of the controversial "Anti-Islam Conference" organized by a city group, Pro Cologne.

Pro Cologne which won 5 per cent of votes at the last city-council elections, has invited 1,000 to 1,500 rightists from all over Europe to join it Saturday at a protest against building a grand mosque.

The far-right rally plans have upset the Islamic world. The government of Iran appealed to Germany to prohibit the demonstration, but Berlin says it has no powers to do this.

However, the German Interior Ministry spoke out against the rally, saying the planned gathering of "populists and extremists harms the co-existence that the city and Muslim citizens have striven for." (dpa)