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

www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/06/cologne-attacks-mayor-women-keep-men-arms-length-germany

Just watched the clip of yesterday's protest. I just cannot believe that the mayor's response has basically made a bad situation for women worse. How could this female politician suggest women don't move about in their town freely whenever they like wherever they want? I don't get it. It's like she gave some poor safety advice to her teenage niece.

I didn't realise groping wasn't an offence in Germany :(

That said, BetaDad is actually speaking the closest to the truth here. The evidence doesn't point to this being recent immigrants. Immigrants, yes, if you consider 2nd/3rd generation immigrants to be immigrants (and if you believe this then 90% of the population of America is immigrant...) And perhaps some recent immigrants, too, but not overwhelmingly from what we know. Which isn't, as yet, very much. And while the crowd was large and still overwhelming in number it was not 1000.

Sexism in Germany is in some ways more backward than the UK and in some ways it's more progressive. We have a female head of state and many of the ministers are also female. The mayor of Cologne, BTW, is also female and has been attacked for her views but continues to uphold her role. Attitudes also vary hugely between areas. Some of the more rural areas are very keen on stay at home mums but in many areas it's becoming much less the norm. On the other hand Germany is the sex work capital of Europe, it's overtaken Holland.

My gut feeling from reading witness statements, articles, etc, is that the police force in Germany are typically very lenient/gentle based on the assumption that most people respond to reason. In this case, more robust management was needed but because it was the first incident of its kind (police chiefs are quoted as saying it's a "new kind of crime") they just haven't had the things in place to manage it.

There is definitely NOT a sweeping under the carpet, nor is the "advice to women" the ONLY strategy being implemented here. It's being criticised by German feminists, too, BTW, but it is in line with advice about other terror attacks with perhaps the difference being staying out of arm's reach of strangers (which is impractical, anyway). They are also sending in more security staff to train stations and installing better CCTV.

"It appears that the vents in Cologne present a perfect window of opportunity to challenge the lack of laws protecting women." That would be a very welcome outcome, Pink. But not with the current focus of the discussion on immigration and cultural differences. If we allow this incident to be hijacked by a racist and anti-immigrant agenda, there will never be any change in the misogynist Western society we live in.

And plus I think she's been given an unfair rap - she was literally asked "How can women protect themselves", not just made a statement off her own back.

It is legal to carry pepper spray in Germany for protection against animal attacks. If you "happen to be" carrying it for animal attacks, get attacked by a person, and use it, then you can't be prosecuted for that act of self defence.

I just read an account on RedCafe Footie forum of a guy who says he was caught up in events in Cologne on NYE with his girlfriend and another female
Friend. (He gives his view on who he met out and about and who was making up the crowds Beta.) Sounds like a bloody awful NYE.

It is a cultural problem, for sure. We can't ignore that over fears of appearing racist. That would be a grave mistake.

"The evidence doesn't point to this being recent immigrants."

But... But... that doesn't matter. The fact is that the men belong to ethnic groups who have no regard for women and have no qualms humiliating and hurting women in front of their lovely mates in the middle of a European city. They were a mob high on testosterone, possibly alcohol and crowd dynamic (as we are told) which amplified the scale of the attacks. In everyday life they still treat women badly and women in cologne and other german cities are pestered by these men regularly.

It's actually worse that the perpetrators are possibly 2/3rd generation immigrants. Their families and clans did not integrate and do not abide by German rules of conduct. If immigration is not managed adequately then the new wave of immigrants will continue in this antisocial fashion.

BTW, i am all for supporting refuges but to not agree with the way it is handled. Berlin is overflowing with asylum seekers, many who come from Croatia. How is this supposed to work?

*Not just Croatia obviously.

Someone way up said that they feel like they are part of a massive social experiment. I feel the same way.

I was unaware that there were no laws against sexual harassment in Germany. That's a startling and disappointing omission.

"And plus I think she's been given an unfair rap - she was literally asked "How can women protect themselves", not just made a statement off her own back."

Her statements are ignorant in the context they were made. The women who travelled via Hauptbahnhof and Dom did not have the option to keep at warmth length. Her statements were a slap in the face of the women who were assaulted on the night. Ms Reker was put on the spot and did not respond well to the journalist's question "how can women protect themselves?"

BertieBotts "The evidence doesn't point to this being recent immigrants. Immigrants, yes, if you consider 2nd/3rd generation immigrants to be immigrants (and if you believe this then 90% of the population of America is immigrant...)"

You cannot compare the immigrants who built America to the current crop of immigrants to USA, or anywhere else.
From the 1890s, immigrants to America came from Ireland, East Europe, Scandinavia, Germany, etc. They were Christian, Jewish and atheist and their backgrounds were not so divergent that they could not co-exist. It is they who are responsible for the wonderful brown walk-ups in NYC for example. Their reason for emigrating was to catch a break through hard work, which had been impossible back home.

They wanted to build not to take over; that is the essential difference. Ditto the Huguenots who sought refuge in England, and later the Jews in the East End. They were pleased to have survived and simply wanted to live, not to dominate.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3386673/Women-Cologne-lockdown-council-admits-no-longer-safe-wake-African-Arab-mob-s-rapes-declares-upcoming-carnival-no-area-females.html

Sorry DF link. "Alarmingly, police in Dusseldorf fear the attacks may be linked to a known criminal gang comprising 2,000 North African men who use sexual assault as a means of distraction."

Well said Lidia. That's the terrifying thing, and crucial difference, they want to take over the West, and unless drastic action is taken, and soon, that's exactly what will happen.

Also, everyone, please remember that the ethnic group we are speaking of does practice Taqiyya on the infidel (that's us). And it's not just the Shi'te sect either.

"She [a female witness on TV] said it was impossible for them to stay together and that her group got separated."

Does not go so well with Ms Reker's advice: “stick together in groups, don’t get split up, even if you’re in a party mood”.

I feel the ethnicity of the men IS relevant.
People from other ethnicity have a different age for sexual majority, different rules regarding how women should dress....
Women's right are not as forward.
We expect them to behave like Western men do, bearing in mind that Western men don't always 'get' consent themselves and the rights have been here longer...
We need to educate the immigrants that come to our countries to consent and all laws regarding sexual activity.
We can also campaign for the right of women in Africa and middle east so there is not such a gap when these men come to live here.
I agree that men have disrespected women for centuries and centuries so it is hard to change but gosh I agree that we need to come together as women and fight for the basic right of having our voice listened to regarding sexual consent.
And where the f** was the police?

An old school German feminist magazine founded by Alice Schwarzer take a stance a opposed to many other feminist groups.
www.emma.de

Schwarzer states "Das sind die Früchte einer versäumten Integration", this is the result of failed integration.

Well done Frau Schwarz.

"Die Männer sollen im Alter von 15 bis 35 gewesen sein. Sie haben sich auf dem Kölner Bahnhofsvorplatz aufgeführt wie auf dem Tahrir-Platz in Kairo. Unter ihnen werden die Flüchtlinge von heute in einer extremen Minderheit gewesen sein, wenn überhaupt. Die Mehrheit sind Flüchtlinge von gestern bzw. Migranten und ihre Söhne. Die träumen davon, Helden zu sein wie ihre Brüder in den Bürgerkriegen von Nordafrika und Nahost – und spielen jetzt Krieg mitten in Europa."

According to Schwarzer these were not recent migrant but 2/3rd generation who are playing at war dreaming of being heroes like their brothers in Syria and Irak.

There are laws dealing with sexual harassment in Germany, they might not be as stringent as in the UK but they do exist.
Oh, and every single woman in my family/friends group, even the ones with children, works and many of them in high positions.

Bertie - Like you, I didn't know about the law on sexual assault in Germany either. Shocked.

I knew about it being the sex work capital of Europe. My view from my direct experience is that Germany has a long way to go in general with issues of equality between men and woman and clearly sexual assault is not taken seriously.

That has led to a general tolerance of low level assaults on women as normal and the general acceptance by police of prostitution, drug dealing, graffiti, littering and all that goes with it. As Bill Bratton has ably pointed out in New York low level criminality and sleaze leads eventually to areas becoming 'no go' and more serious crime taking root. Add to that the poisonous effects of mass unemployment in immigrant populations, isolation from 'civil society' and before long you have groups of young men in gangs with no family ties and all that stems from that. We know how street gang culture works. Its misogynistic. Its criminal. Its violent and lawless.

I really think that is what happened here and women were the victims because they are seen as 'easy pickings' for anything these men want to perpetrate against them. The police stood by because after all its not really a crime - apparently until it got seriously out of hand.

I think this about German culture, turning a blind, not regarding women as equal, failing to police or care as a society about sexual assault and tolerating lawlessness in general in certain areas of major cities.

The solution so far seems to have been to tell women to stay at home. Wow that's one right out of the German cultural playbook. Women stay at home so you don't get sexually assaulted and look after children while men go out to work and do important stuff. You would be amazed how many upright upstanding high born important German men I have met display attitudes that are right out of the 1950s and will agree with that - or maybe you won't.

As I see this is a complex cocktail of colliding cultures and social factors. There is not a simple solution and I do not for one minute believe anyone has any intention of dealing properly with the causes and effects. I don't believe any of the women who were sexually assaulted will get proper redress.

Telling women to keep strangers at arms length is just patronising twaddle, to be perfectly honest. Every girl and woman already knows that. How could we not?

We need to educate the immigrants that come to our countries to consent and all laws regarding sexual activity.

The perpetrators of these assaults were mostly second- and even third-generation immigrants. They know perfectly well what the laws are around women's freedom and sexual assault. They just chose to ignore them, because they disagree with them.

This is a mass campaign of civil disobedience, designed to chip away at Western women's hard-won freedom to move around as we please and feel relatively safe from gendered violence and replace it with a culture of female subjugation more closely resembling the norms in countries such as Egypt.