Mass sexual assaults in Cologne on New Years Eve Part II

[Pinkchampchoccies]

Just in case people want to continue discussing this.

'So we're all fairly clear that this is an organised terrorist attack.'

I don't think it was a terrorist attack.

Luna said she's in Czech seeing segregation and something very similar to Nazi behaviour. Of course she's worried, rightly so, it's horrific. None of us want to see the far right wing hijack this.

I agree oneflew
I was just talking with dh updating him on this thread and he found it interesting and disturbing in equal measures.

The effort not to victim blame and minimise gender based violence including stranger rape is still in its infancy in the UK i would say.

I am thinking about policy changes. As and when, maybe MN would support us..

LieselMeminger said: " know this sounds silly, but do posters here think there's a possibility that our dds, or our dds dds, will live in a time where they can't be in public alone".

I for one do. And your take on the possessiveness of men sounding as if their concern is more about who did the attacking, reminds me of something a close friend told me. She said something like When European culture is thoroughly dominated, the menfolk will protest vociferously about their wives having to cover their face, be accompanied in public, etc. BUT once the mouthpieces of the new culture begin to explain the pros of the new way and how it will benefit the men, those protests will on the whole disappear. Why? My friend said it is because all men instinctively cleave to each other more than to any woman.

Being extremely vexed at just how much this story is being swerved in the mainstream press' op ed's and comments disabled etc, (and more importantly for me), by just about all the left leaning, media watchdog websites I usually love and subscribe to.. I started a thread on one of them yesterday. So far the only reply I've had, is that he story is "iffy" and we must wait until all the facts emerge before we can comment. Fascinating, as usually, should a Israeli/UK gov/White house spokesperson cough it's under the microscope 2 min's later.

Basically I've been told to "calm down dear"!!

We are past the point of right wing hi jack, according to Sky new 18 out of 29 questioned where asylum seekers. They have their ammunition what we need to do is ensure that people can have honest discussions so people do not feel their only option is the right wing to express their views and concerns. It is those who try to trivialise these sorts of incidents as to not to offend or jump on people concerns with attacks of racism that fuel the far right more than the atrocities itself.

how is this a terrorist attack? Yes, if a grouping at claimed it as such...OK. But otherwise it seems weird to take that tack.

What I'd hope to see from this Meph is:

• A complete rewriting of German laws surrounding sexual assault and rape so that women have legal protection if they become victims of this sort of attack
• A statement from government, police and other relevant parties that women's right to freedom of movement and bodily autonomy is paramount and will not be curtailed
• More proactive policing that disperses large crowds and pre-empts the need for presence at large events e.g. Karneval
• Preferably a change to station access in Germany similar to that in the UK, enforced by an equivalent of the BTP
• Better police responses if and when women are assaulted
• Where possible apprehension and conviction of the perpetrators of the assault, preferably under the more draconian riot laws rather than the soft measures for assault

If the above do not work to prevent further attacks then I think temporary curfews on ALL citizens (not just women) would be a good idea, and that public transport would need to become more heavily policed / supervised to give protection to people going about their lives within curfew.

I've been continuing to read this thread and trying to work out exactly why I am so angry. (And I am)
How fucking dare these men treat another human being like that? I can only think it is because they really intrinsically don't regard those women as human -equal to them.

(I was talking to my DP and he said something similar to the guardian about how they were angry etc (so fucking what - that's not my problem its theirs) - and also had nothing to lose - they knew there would be no consequences for their actions - I guess that is illustrated by the report of the guy ripping up his papers...)
Women in this country/west have fought for 100s of years for our freedoms - they have died for them. 100 years ago we weren't allowed to show our ankles - let alone vote... some men in this country (white) still don't like the fact women have (purportedly) equal rights - what we have is fragile and we need to protect it and build on it.
I am sure I am not on my own in that some of us have, in our own way, fought little battles - I worked in a male dominated industry in my late teens/early 20s - I put up with a lot of shit to prove that I (as a female) could do the job - I repeatedly got sexually harassed (we only gave you a job cos you thought you'd give us a blow job in the break etc), couldn't ask for help to lift heavy things (even things where one person lifting was considered dangerous) and I got my work picked to pieces and the piss taken out of me (if I started to get pissed off/upset and they could tell they'd say 'What's wrong with you? Time of the month or what?') I had to do my job 100x better than any male. (And I used to go home and cry and dread going in -but no way were those sexist pigs going to win).
By the time I left the industry, after 10 yrs or so, the situation was quite a bit better, from what I know of it, it is even better now -not perfect but getting there ... No way did I put myself through that to go backwards - for my daughters to have to start again from an even worse position.
We should not be telling women what to do, how to behave - we should be blanket banning the gathering of groups of say more than 5 men in public spaces (so at eg a football match would be ok...a railways station (unless being police escorted similar to how football fans are treated) or a shopping centre or a public square -not ok.
(I know that may impact women and families who would like to go and see football etc so is not right or ideal - but keeping it to public spaces should be do-able).
We could run the risk of saying of a certain age or background (and be accused of being racist) - or we could just say men -full stop.
Because we can't trust them to behave with common decency...and I know that isn't fair on the good guys - but quite honestly I don't care - maybe that is what is needed (to be treated as inferior en masse ) to realise how wrong it is to tell women to change their behaviour.

Agree with bluebolt. Common sense open discussion and enforcement and strengthening of laws can solve the problem. But if it is all denied, then people will feel they are being tricked. Already on BBC Today programme this morning, some German commentators were saying that many Germans are now distrustful of the media telling them the truth.

I don''t know if this is a silly question that just occurred to me but,

Do the recent migrants have a vote? Or, at what point do they qualify for a vote?

Someone linked to a very interesting piece about the high 0/0 of men and how this leads to instability even without the 'cultural factor'. It said that Canada were only taking women and families. No men unless lgbt. It also said that 90 0/0 of unaccompanied minors were male.

I wonder if anyone could link to this again because I have seen other pp contradicting these numbers.

One difference between burglary and assault is that you can't make an insurance claim after an assault.

I just read this on Sky news ^A German-Tunisian lawyer has described the assaults as inexcusable, but criticised the police for identifying some of the attackers as North African before making any arrests.

Mehdi Labidi said: "Germany is a tolerant country but I find this really strange that an entire ethnic group is being branded as criminals.

"If far-right extremists attack North Africans then we are going to file a criminal complaint against police for incitement^

This has made me so angry! Yet again its all about the men, what about the WOMEN!

LumelaMme That is correct about the BNP being the first to highlight the sex grooming gangs in the North of England. I remember seeing a TV prog about it maybe in 2003. It was dismissed by most as being racist, this could not be happening, etc etc. It took another 10 yrs before it hit the headlines. That's 10 yrs of more suffering by the girls.

Bungo

"Luna said she's in Czech seeing segregation and something very similar to Nazi behaviour. Of course she's worried, rightly so, it's horrific. None of us want to see the far right wing hijack this."

*Luna has been blaming all posters on a very balanced thread of being being racists, often derailing what has been a superb discussion.

The events happened and it was migrant men assaulting women in Cologne (whether the women are German by nationality or visitors or migrants from other countries does not matter). This is a fact, which has been confirmed by the German police We want to be able and have the right to talk about this freely without being silenced by cries of racism ffs. Not one person on this thread has been racist, on the contrary.

The far right will of course make use of the events to further their political propaganda adding lies and generalisations to to the events that really happened.

I am so very anti-Neo Nazi and anti-racist but refuse to elaborate further because i don't want to have to justify myself.

I wonder why is it more important to silence nasty Neo-nazis (disclaimer, yes they are nasty, horrible liars, i hope i make my position clear) than to silence and curtail the misogynist Wahhabism which is spreading in Europe and the rest of the world? imo they both need challenging so that all individuals can live without fear and with dignity. All people, including women and migrant men, though I care more for women's rights at this point. Because the media's attitude demonstrates that we are the current underdog, being put in our place by Guardian journalists for daring to have some freedom and owning smart phones.

This thread, to me, is very much about challenging the silencing of women's rights and women's voices in order to protect Muslim sensitivities. It is about women's rights being less important to politicians and the mass media than the rights of migrants not to be persecuted by neo-nazis (of course they shouldn't be persecuted, never!)

And the BNP picked it up because officialdom and press were to scared to touch it due to anticipated (and actual) accusations of racism. The fear of that stigma is what drove willful ignorance not the bogeymen of the BNP.

Blue I very much agree.

I am so furious with the left-leaning newspapers' and Mayor of Koln's reaction to this because by failing to stick up for women they are playing straight into the hands of the far right.
If women don't see the left as caring about them more and more female voters will feel the extreme right wing parties represent them better DESPITE those parties' history of treating women badly. If I remember my 20th century history correctly, plenty of German women voted for the Nazis.

And it's not like there isn't a response available to the left that is perfectly compatible with anti-racism and welcoming refugees. No need to make any song and dance about the ethnicity of the perpetrators, just lead on 'this kind of behaviour isn't acceptable no matter who does it and women have a right to go about their business unmolested, and the policing must be provided to enable them to do so.'

"The same isn’t always true of young male migrants exchanging life under repressive regimes, where they may at least have enjoyed superiority over women, for scraping by at the bottom of Europe’s social and economic food chain."

From the guardian article.

How on earth can she use the word enjoy. How??????????????????? Apologies for daft multiple question marks, my bs detector and inner keyboard warrior is going into a frenzied overdrive at this article.

'Once a nation and its culture is diluted there is no cohesion. Look at fragmented Britain for God's sake.'

What is 'British' culture Tatiana? Can you describe it? How do you think it has been diluted? You seem to be suggesting some sort of cultural purity that has been lost.

'No cohesion.' There is cohesion.

A nation diluted? Was this nation once purer?

Racism in Hungary,Slovakia and the Czech Rep is widespread. The justification for not allowing Muslim refugees is racist. Would it be ok to exclude Jewsih or Christian refugees on the same grounds and defy international law and the Geneva Convention by doing so? Hungary spent considerable amounts of money on posters before refugees came warning that migrants or refugees may take Hungarian jobs and scaremongering.

Evidence of racism can also be seen in the treatment of refugees by Orban, the terrifying level of neglect they recieved, the only care for them being that provided by volounteers. People were kept in pens like animals, out in the sun without food and water, without any medical assistance. It was basically, 'I am willing to let you suffer or die to prove my point' and die they did. A baby was born dead due to lack of medical care. Tear gas and water cannons were used against children.

Oh, but I'm just a naive 'balanced' dogooder to believe this is wrong and it is ok to treat others degradingly and cruelly when you believe you are protecting your own culture?

No, it isn't culture that drives the policies of Orban and his opposition to Muslim immigrants. It is a competition between Orban who is far right and his even more far right opposition, Jobbik. It is racism. Orban has been hostile to everyone who's not an ethnic Hungarian, like Roma and Jews. Many Jews have left the country because it doesn't feel safe. He's said that Muslim refugees breed faster than Europeans, and so they'll wipe Hungarians out. He talks about the 'Hungarian nation', meaning the non Jewish, non Roma and now non Muslim, nation. The financial crisis had already been linked to Jews by Orban. The more Jobbik have nipped at Orban's heels, the scarier he has become.

If you think by only talking about culture, rather than race, you cannot be racist, you are wrong. Those giving the nod to Orban and those like him to 'protect' them from immigrants give free reign to having their rights curtailed as much as they supposedly would be by the newcomers.

As far as I'm concerned nazi right wingers and islamists are just the same tribalist monsters with marginally different justifications.

www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/inland/uebergriffe-in-koeln-warum-rekers-empfehlungen-hilfreich-sind-14002497.html
The first article justifying Ms Raker's arm length advice.

Some issues I've been thinking about. Focusing on the sexual violence aspect of this will relegate the incidents to the 'Women's issues' and 'Women' section of the media (because there is only limited society-wide interest in these things and people will soon reach saturation point). However, linking these incidents with other aspects of perpetrator identity also shuts down debate as we have seen where some media outlets will proscribe commentary if the comments crossover with ethnicity, immigration, social status. How to represent opinion so that debate won't be stifled?

www.berliner-zeitung.de/politik/sote-deutsch-arabischer-uebersetzungs-zettel,10808018,33480728.html

I am now convinced this was an orchestrated and deliberate gang attack on women. . I am shaking with anger.

As the men in the mob had apparently little command of the German language they brought scraps of paper with them to be able to speak to German women in simple sentences:

"Auf der linken Seite stehen deutsche Sätze und Begriffe wie „Große Brüste“, „Ich will dich küssen“, „Ich töte Sie“ und „Ich will ficken“."

"Big tits"

"i want to kiss you"

"I will kill you"

"I want to fuck you"

Fuck off all minimisers.

Do you honestly think by calling for the protection of women, that we are condoning any of that Luna?

Because to me it seems as though you are conflating people who want all immigrants, recent or not, to treat women with respect as per our Western ideals, with people who are happy to see immigrants and refugees suffer and die. I think that is appalling obfuscation and it makes me question your motive.

To put another way, should we view the sexual assaults as a stand-alone issue where these events demonstrated yet more subjugation of women via sexual assault (and we thus protest, march, vocally write counters to this) or do we view these events as one of a series of incidents and actions, which are destabilising the European way of life?
I'm not sure yet. It could be the latter without being planned as such. I know from own research that people would say in the 50s, 'Oh, that was clearly planned from Moscow' when actually it wasn't - though whatever 'it' was in line with Soviet ideology so it was logical to conclude that Moscow pulled the strings.

I've said for months that a) refugees should be kept as near to their home countries as possible, to make it easier for them to go back when/if things calm down (with EU funding to help and that b) the refugees we should take should be selected from camps near the border on the basis of need. For this reason I've no doubt come across as a hard-arsed callous bastard to various people on my FB feed who are constantly signing petitions, because I haven't 'signed and shared'.