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

I'm seeing fb backlash now from women who were in the area (ie at the station but not directly outside where apparently this happened) saying its hysteria, it was fine, the crowd were friendly, no trouble etc etc.

Although they are being shouted down by many.

They're saying the attacks didn't happen?! Why?

Because it's possible they didn't? If politicians wanted to whip up mass hysteria all they'd have to do is show footage of the large crowd and then get a large number of women to file complaints.

because when women are attacked we are often just creating an issue, being hysterical, objecting to something that was totally innocent

it happens worldwide

if it was men being attacked these questions wouldn't be raised

I think there is a crime of sexual
Assault in Germany

It's this:

Whosoever coerces another person, by force, by threat of imminent danger to life or limb, or by exploiting a situation in which the victim is unprotected and at the mercy of the offender, to suffer sexual acts by the offender or a third person on their own person or to engage actively in sexual activity with the offender or a third person, shall be liable to imprisonment of not less than one year.

I agree with nosuchthing too

Do any of the German posters have an insight into what men on German forums/news sites/social media are saying?

I have a nasty cold at the moment and have therefore spent the past two days on the sofa, reading a lot of different German news sites and forums. The vast majority of people, men and women alike, are absolutely outraged at the events themselves as well as response from politicians and police. The mayor of cologne has been mercilessly ridiculed for her "armlaenge" suggestion.
As expected, right-wingers, who usually don't give a fuck about women's rights, are using the debate for their own ends. Also as expected, some overly tolerant do-gooders are minimizing the hell out of what happened, claim that the events have been exaggerated by the press and have nothing to do with cultural factors / problematic attitudes amongst certain groups. But mostly the reactions have been very similar to the majority of posts on this thread.

Some news outlets have apologized for not reporting the events sooner. Cologne has been the major headline in all the big newspapers for the past two days and it seems like more critical questions are being asked now. I'm afraid the discussion will die down soon enough though and nothing will have changed.

do you really think it possible, that all these women and their male companions plotted and made this up so refugees would be seen as a threat and Neonazi-attacks would appear justified??

It probably IS possible, but is it really likely?

my German friend talks of German guilt

is this something you can relate to NoSuch (not your personal guilt)

she feels this is what is behind Germany having such an open policy (which she is not totally against, just feels so many and knowing so little about those coming in will cause problems)

I meant is that something you recognise

It's been done before. All they need to show is footage of the large crowd and get women to lodge complaints right? That's all we have to go on and given the political situation, I wouldn't put it past them. There are some very powerful people absolutely petrified of racial miscegnation.

*I think there is a crime of sexual
Assault in Germany hmm

It's this:

Whosoever coerces another person, by force, by threat of imminent danger to life or limb, or by exploiting a situation in which the victim is unprotected and at the mercy of the offender, to suffer sexual acts by the offender or a third person on their own person or to engage actively in sexual activity with the offender or a third person, shall be liable to imprisonment of not less than one year.*

Yes, but without going into the legal detail, mere groping sadly doesn't satisfy the requirements of that particular crime. It would for example have to be connected with a threat or significant physical force.

It's being discussed on Newsnight tonight ( BBC2), will be interested to see what is being said as if hasn't been a major news story so far...

you are right, it could be, but I don´t see any of the big political parties doing this and somhow I doubt that AfD or Pegida would be able to orchestrate such a gfake assault in different cities (it´s not only cologne)...maybe small groups in Saxony (wothout implying that everysaxon would participate!) could try something like that, but they appear quite amateurish in most of their other activities...

Newsnight ( for balance) speaks to woman upset by nasty posts on social media.

Excellent posts from Nosuch and Werks - thanks

Mayor of Cologne advising women how to behave to avoid being assaulted

FFS!!!! Victim blaming much? Female Mayor

Oops - sorry its already been posted

my German friend talks of German guilt

is this something you can relate to NoSuch (not your personal guilt)

she feels this is what is behind Germany having such an open policy (which she is not totally against, just feels so many and knowing so little about those coming in will cause problems)

I think your friend is right, German guilt is definitely a big factor.

Many people see offering protection to genuine refugees as a. the only humane thing to do and b. Germany's moral duty after "our" horrific past deeds. In principal I personally agree with that.
The problem in my view is that "German guilt" stifles any proper discussion about how many refugees we can handle, wether we should also take economic migrants, how we should deal with new arrivals who refuse to integrate and respect our rules, etc. Sadly that lack of debate isn't doing anyone any favors, be it genuine refugees who want to build a new life here, women who suddenly have to fear for their freedoms or those of our European neighbours who didn't sign up for the influx of millions of people.

It's such a relief to see the rage I feel reflected in this thread. Because it's not on mainstream news sites (the cowardly Guardian hasn't opened any articles to comments) and it's not on social media. I've been called a racist and mansplained to by two men today on FB (minimise, minimise, minimise, it's just some drunk guys on NYE, nothing to see here. And you're wrong to relate it to their culture or ethnicity, don't even go there). Elsewhere from my feminist friends who care vocally about under-representation of women in the theatre or reproductive rights - tumbleweed. Nada. Too controversial. Fuck that. I'm sick of women getting thrown under the bus. I'm sick of this kind of shit being swept under the carpet all the time because it's uncomfortable to talk about.

FWIW when I lived in Germany as a young woman, I was sexually harassed all the time by Turkish/North African origin men. It was the first time it had ever happened to me, so I was quite taken aback to be propositioned on my way to work in my cleaning lady's uniform at 7am. Bit grim. As someone pointed out upthread, it's even more depressing if the men responsible for the Cologne attacks are second generation but not surprising either. German men are a bit old-fashioned but they don't tend to grope you in the street.

Also, I found "German guilt" a bit OTT at times (this was over 20 years ago). My lovely left-wing anarchist friends refused to cheer Germany in football matches and had a fit over my Doc Martens and army jacket ("you cannot vear them, they are for ze skinheads!) They did a great job of teaching the postwar generations about the horrors of the Third Reich and the Holocaust but it seemed to tip into self-hatred at times which isn't healthy.

shins - in my memory doc Martens were ok, you just had to wear the right shoelace-color. 20 years ago i was 17, so absolutely doc martens time, although i never was a doc martens kind of girl.
The world Championship 2006 changed Germany quite a bit, fortunately it is okay to cheer the Soccer Team now...but the guilt-thing is very deep-rooted in most Germans and i notice myself monitoring opinions and moods and spoken or written words against this backround. It certainely has an impact on hao "we" react on attacks or Problems especially with immigrants or foreigners or religious groups.

This the perfect response to all this shit (wait for 2 seconds till it loads)

Here

Excellent post nosuch, also great username. What do you think Germany should do now?

Thank you. It's such a difficult situation, but I think one thing that definitely needs to happen is a change in criminal law and asylum law.

Groping and all sorts of unwanted touching need to become a crime under German law.

At the moment criminal asylum seekers can only be extradited if they have been handed a prison sentence of at least three years or even not at all if their country of origin is deemed too unsafe. None of the men in the Cologne events (provided they could be identified and convicted, which doesn't look very likely at this point) would receive a sentence anywhere near that high.
Obviously at this point we don't know for sure if any asylum seekers were even involved. What we do know though is that we have a very large number of young male Arab and North African asylum seekers. While the majority of them are probably perfectly pleasant people, there will also be a significant minority that exhibits unacceptable attitudes and behaviours towards women. These men need to be sent a very clear message and realise that they won't be able to stay if they don't respect our laws.

I'm not saying we should send back a refugee who has stolen a bag of rice or a pair of shoes. There are however crimes that in my opinion show a massive disregard for our value system as a whole and should absolutely not be tolerated. We have too many sexual predators of our own already, thanks very much.

Should the perpetrators turn out to be second or third generation immigrants / homegrown, the situation would be even worse as previous posters have already said. It would show that integration has gone even worse than everyone previously thought.

In any case I would like to see our government, public figures and schools, but especially leading male figures within the Turkish, Arab and North African communities step up for women's rights and make it very clear that any kind of sexual harassment is absolutely unacceptable. Not going to happen obviously.

Is it another facet of the Syrian war? Sew doubt and suspicion abroad so that escape routes for fleeing Syrians are cut off?

Yes, and I said so pages ago but its bigger than what you've suggested.

Its a battle of hearts and minds and my money would have been on ISIS orchestrating it.

How would the German Right Wing manage to persuade the very people they hate to go along with them and do what they did?

But the likes of ISIS? They'd have no trouble getting their followers to do it and all the more-so if their followers had been put in place as immigrants in the first place. You wouldn't even have needed thousands of them. Just enough to spread their word and gather recruits along the way.

What happened in Cologne was no different to the shootings in Paris. It was a well orchestrated, well planned attack.