Mass sexual assaults in Cologne on New Years Eve

[Cellardoor1]

I've just read this and I'm shocked that such a thing could happen. A group of around 1,000 men gathered and assaulted at least 60 women and girls and also pickpocketed people. Apparently the news wasn't released until now out of fears it could stir up tension as the men appeared to be of Arab/North African appearance, possibly refugees.

abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/cologne-police-chief-condemns-sex-assaults-years-eve-36083833

" The area around the central station and Dom are notorious for pickpocketing, drug dealing, prostitution etc."

Right so this is a known generally lawless area where street crime is fairly well established. What better time to commit those crimes than NYE?

This is sounding a lot like a general failure of police to maintain law and order in an area known to attract criminality than a self organising mob of asylum seekers sexually intent on assaulting women.

I've got to admit that I'm not fluent German (although I can read and understand a news report) so my engagement with local media is sporadic and my engagement with what's going on politically fairly non existent.

However from what I've seen and what I understand the response from the Police has been defensive and lukewarm and the response from city councillors has not been strong enough in condemning th epolice and what happened.

I would like to see our female mayor out on the street against violence to women. I was encouraged by the banners being held up by women yesterday which were against both sexism AND racism. I'd like to see that backed up by the council authorities.

The fact is that I DO feel the centre of Cologne is a no go area at night now, and certainly for Karneval. I wouldn't be going out there and I wouldn't let my daughters out either.

The train station area has always felt dangerous - filthy underpasses, LOTS of drugs, alcohol, homeless, graffiti, pickpockets etc. Even more so now. I've seen a man injecting himself covered in blood. In the middle of the day.

Oh so they 'accidentally' decided en masse to sexually assault young German women?

Sure that's a logical idea to come up with. Every group of young men come up with that idea when out and about.

ABetaDad - it is disturbing, but not surprising given your gender, that you are saying that this was pickpocketing with a little 'how's your father' thrown in.

Glad you are solving the puzzle for everyone Beta! I shall say no more.

fucking hideous. The problem is not race, the problem is men. The world over men are taught theyre more important than women and that women are objects to win or take.
reminds me of this story from last year

www.viral4real.com/thousands-of-men-strip-molest-and-sexually-assault-women/

The initial objective or facilitating factor may have been robbery. One man grabs a woman's breasts to distract and frighten her while the other picks her pockets
This is minimising.
A whole group of men got together to intimidate and abuse women.

onthehone - it sounds to me like this place is basically attracts lawless rootless young men engaged in criminal behaviour.

Criminal behaviour of all sorts allowed to run unchecked and then looking at the time line posted above large numbers gathered around midnight with no doubt mostly onlookers and then it broke down into smaller street gangs who carried out assaults, robbery and so on later on.

Lack of police intervention years ago that allowed this area to decay is the root of this not the asylum seekers. No doubt N. African and ME men as well as Kosovan, Serbian, Albanian and quite likely some ethnic Germans too are involved.

Buildore - would you like to explain it then above and beyond 'it was those evil N. Africa/Me men over there'. Which is all we have had so far.

"
This is sounding a lot like a general failure of police to maintain law and order in an area known to attract criminality than a self organising mob of asylum seekers sexually intent on assaulting women."

What?? You can't be serious. It is hardly one or the other but both factors played into the situation escalating.

The poor, poor mob just could not control itself, and the police is to blame alone? I do not think so.

Everyone - this was an organised sexual assault on women. I know the mentality. Look at what is happening in India - young women are hassled by groups of men on their way to work & back. Rapes by mobs have occurred because it's easier to disguise what is happening as it's happening.
These men are not clever, but they are devious by nature.

Ah I wish there was a hide the blether/poster button but one last go:

We must be reading a different thread.I have picked up interesting first hand experiences and ideas from many posters.

ABetaDad1 Are you suggesting that the cultural misogyny, high prevalence of gender-based violence and general every day sexism in many of the cultures referred to is a fabrication too?

I live in Cologne for a while in 1998 & while this attack is shocking I'm not really surprised. I lived in a huge student town with a huge North African male population. The at they treated women (western women I suppose as there were no African women there) as unbelievable. Constant verbal sexual harassment, following me home, waiting for women outside cafe/pub toilets to come on to them. It was constant, exhausting and a real eye opener

There have been TV documentaries about the acid attacks on girls who have declined to either step out with a chap, or declined their offer of marriage. it is rife in Pakistan and gaining ground amongst the Muslims in India. These girls are taken in by self-supporting self-help groups and they live there for the rest of their lives - never marrying or having children or indeed having much of a social life. They are taught skills to earn a living, but otherwise live within the confines of the mutually supportive self-help group.

An English friend once told me that in her opinion she did not think that many men of any creed actually like women. Perhaps she is right, they dont like but need.

I feel one of the issues in Germany and here in the UK is a failure to equally apply the law. It should not matter what culture perpetrators of crime are. It is illegal to asexually assault women. It is illegal to treat women less favourably than men . End of. The law shouldn't care what your culture is. There should be zero tolerance. Not this destructive pandering to the intolerant and misogynist. No telling women to cover up and stay out of no go areas. It's what happened in Rotherham, and its what happened here. You commit a crime, you are punished. The issue is the mob mentality of a large group of men, none of whom thought there was anything wrong with sexually assaulting women. They need to be aware in no uncertain terms that the conditions of being in a country where you have freedoms and opportunity is that you do not get to treat other human beings like pieces of meat, no matter what your 'culture' says, or your parents have brought you up to believe.

Natailya exactly as it happens in Egypt as well. Thank you for being truthful.
Branleuse yes, it is about race/culture in this instance. No one is saying western/european men never sexually assault women, but not in this organised manner. The police spokesman has already said this type of crime is unprecedented in Germany.
Are you also going to try and pretend the Rotherham/Rochdale/Derby etc grooming and sexual exploitation cases were 'just about men'?

OK everyone you carry on believing that this was all down to 1000 N.African/ME asylum seekers who just happened to decide to meet up and sexually assault women outside a railway station and the solution is to stop immigration and then we can all sleep safely.

Really, I cant believe the simplistic stuff being written on this thread. The mass sexual assaults happened and nobody gives a stuff about the who and why - but hey we got our guilty party identified already.

Dare I say Germany has been here before picking on a minority group in a moment of hysteria.

"Constant verbal sexual harassment, following me home, waiting for women outside cafe/pub toilets to come on to them. It was constant, exhausting and a real eye opener"

Thank you that is also my experience with some of these groups in Berlin. I was starting to doubt my own perception.

And if people are so worried about cultural sensitivities, it is the women in these cultures who suffer the most. The women who need to take their children out of school to translate for them, even though they have lived here for 30 years, the girls who want the freedom to marry who they want, or to do something other than what their parents want them to do, and the women who dare to not dress in the way the men think they should dress. Their lives every day are poorer because people pander to cultural sensitivities.

Just ignore BetaDad. He is reading a different thread to us all.

Abetadad carry on being an apologist for sexual violence and misoginy. The rest of us are waking up now.

It's being discussed on Jeremy Vine this afternoon.

I think all this pious virtue-signalling about 'othering' is much easier if you aren't the one who's going to be at the sharp end of sexually aggressive intimidation and assault at the hands of men whose lovely diverse culture includes the belief that women are inferior beings and western women are whores to be grabbed and raped.

"OK everyone you carry on believing that this was all down to 1000 N.African/ME asylum seekers who just happened to decide to meet up and sexually assault women outside a railway station and the solution is to stop immigration and then we can all sleep safely.

Really, I cant believe the simplistic stuff being written on this thread. The mass sexual assaults happened and nobody gives a stuff about the who and why - but hey we got our guilty party identified already.

Dare I say Germany has been here before picking on a minority group in a moment of hysteria."

Nice display of male arrogance, wouldn't you say? Us little women here not making sense of it all... not seeing the bigger picture and no awareness of history. We poor ignorant women must be politically blind and clueless.

So glad you're here ABetadad to put us poor hysterical women right on everything.
What would we do without you