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Tensions Rise in Germany Over Handling of Mass Sexual Assaults in Cologne
The Guardian reports:
A ferocious debate has erupted in Germany over the handling of mass sexual assaults and muggings carried out by groups of young males during New Year's Eve celebrations in Cologne, amid accusations of a police and media cover-up over fears of whipping up anti-foreigner sentiment in the wake of the migrant crisis.
About 100 complaints have now been made to police, two-thirds of which are linked to sexual assault, including two rapes. According to police and witnesses, the perpetrators were of north African and Arab appearance, although neither the identity nor origin of any of them has so far been established.
If you're not already feeling queasy enough be sure to read the link "Asian sex-grooming gangs in the UK" in the article. Apparently you can find similar stories from all over the UK, these sexual crimes against underage girls perpetrated by muslims are sickeningly common.
Conspiracy of Silence - or Sensationalist Reporting?
There are a number of marginal news sites posting stories out of Europe these days, mostly from Germany, Sweden, as well as other claims made regarding Finland and the UK. The claims all center around a huge increase in rapes by immigrants, outright take over of public train stations, and mass groping of women passing through the stations.
According to these reports, the incidents started in midsummer and continue to this day, but the local news organizations have refused to publish reports of these incidents even after arrests have been made. Often police are accused of withholding the news of any complaints or arrests for months.
The clear implication, more often implied than stated is that the national leaders who went public in their pledges to accept refugees from the middle east war zones as well as northern Africa are leaning on main stream news outlets to suppress news reports of these rapes and sexual assaults. This suppression, if it exists, also appears to extend to the US press.
The assaults aren't limited to European women, but also include women in the immigrant shelters, some as young as 16. The immigrant shelters population in Munich is 80% male. But not all the alleged perpetrators are migrants from the recent wave of mass migrations over the summer and fall. Some are earlier immigrants from North Africa who don't necessarily live in the camps.
Finally some reports are leaking into the western press in the US, such as this brief report in the New York Times about events on New Years Eve. That same event was reported by a couple of the British tabloids.
Many reports are in German, Here and Here. (Google Translate does well with these pages). Others are in English such as this one and this one.
Are any Soylentils living in the EU near refugee centers seeing these problems? Is it being reported? Is it being repressed? Or is the whole thing a made up issue by biased articles in fringe news sites?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by cpghost on Friday January 08 2016, @11:28PM
I'm a Soylentil living in a little town of 45,000 located between the cities of Düsseldorf and Cologne. In this town like in many other towns in Northrhine-Westphalia, we've integrated some 600 to 700 refugees and/or migrants from all over the world, mostly Syrians, Afghans, Balkanese, sub-saharan Africans, and some North-Africans. We can see them shopping at Aldi (think our version of Walmart) and all over the town with their families, children, ...
For what I can see and hear here in the neighborhood, there has been no problems w.r.t. sexual assault or bad behavior towards women from this new population whatsoever, for more than a year. I'm also daily in Düsseldorf and frequently in Cologne, and I must say that I'm really surprised and shocked by what happened at New Year's Eve in Cologne. It is not their usual behavior: something very unusual must have happened there.
IMHO, what happened in Cologne points to the following problem: near the Central Station (both Cologne and Düsseldorf), there are gangs of mainly young North-African drug dealers and pick-pockets, and I've got a strong feeling that what happened in Cologne was somehow related to a new kind of pick-pocketing method, where the sexual assaults was merely a diversion tactic. If authorities want to get rid of this kind of criminal behavior, they should really track those drug dealers and thieves, and throw them out of our country if they're not citizens. The problem would then disappear by itself.
Anyway, that's just my personal highly subjective feeling.
As to the public debate, and getting a little political now, that's a highly emotionally charged discussion which opened a whole can of worms: a lot of people from the German New Right are crawling out of their holes right now and and feeling emboldened to speak out what they thought all along the whole time. However, I've not heard this aggressive PEGIDA-like rhetoric here in my town nor in Düsseldorf today (nor before), despite all what happened, despite intensive media coverage of the Cologne assaults. I don't think that those far right extremists will prevail here in Western Germany. Luckily, in the Rhineland region, we have a very different mentality than that of Saxony and Dresden. In fact, we're exact opposites. That's why I'm particularly disgusted that those criminals picked Cologne for their attacks: of all cities in Germany, Cologne was the most tolerant and welcoming city towards refugees...
Cordula's Web. http://www.cordula.ws/
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 09 2016, @02:00AM
Using gang rape as a diversion? For pick-pocketing?!? Look, I'm pretty sure that, even in Germany, gang rape gets a much longer criminal sentence than pick-pocketing. Are you sure you have thought your strongly-felt theory through? Are you sure? Really?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 09 2016, @06:42AM
Not the original poster, but: there has been 1 (one) rape reported for Cologne during New Year's Eve; there is no mentioning of gang rape at all.
The sexual assaults reported are touching buttocks and breasts and dirty talk.