Mass sexual assaults in Cologne on New Years Eve Part II

[Pinkchampchoccies]

Just in case people want to continue discussing this.

I agree, Constance, Attenborough is not talking about war. All he is saying is that humans are a plague.

interestingly, it also turns out that police in Cologne declined the offer of support from another nearby police force . I wonder why

www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/inland/f-a-z-exklusiv-koelns-polizei-schlug-angebot-fuer-verstaerkung-aus-14003923.html

polenta that's a brilliant reader response.

I read somewhere that Germany let in millions of refugees over just a few months. Some of them were bound to be criminals/unsavoury - the type who would've (or probably had) raped women in Syria before trying it here.

Part of the problem here is that there hasnt been any proper processing of Syrian refugees (i.e collating of Ids, cross referencing with crime agencies/ syrian records etc etc). This needs to happen immediately so the fraudsters and criminals can be identified and deported immediately.

Think about this - during the 70s my dad was in Uganda and even as a British citizen with a British passport raised in a country that had until Idi Amin loved British culture, he had to undergo more processing than the Syrian refugees did.

Thank you for such a good post, MistressMia. You have said what the rest of us are not allowed to say. (Just heard that two very good MN posters have been thrown off the site!)

By the majority discrediting the religion through critical examination and robust debate

This. This is what MN campaign should be, not sexual violence per se. But no-one will touch this with a barge pole, will they, not even MN?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-35261359
The young woman in this interview is so very brave talking about this. i hope she keeps safe .

People talk about Islamist, Wahhabi and Salafi Islam as if it's just those interpretations that are the problem. It's core Islam itself as derived from the Quran and actions of Muhammed that's responsible for these events

this I believe is true, though I do know what I would call progressive muslims or rather muslims that adjust their religion around culture then religion is not put first in islam it should always be put first it is a way of life not just your faith.

The Koran is not open for interpretation it is the word of God so can not be compared with the Bible.

No time to write everything I'd like to, but just wanted to say that I’ve been following these events since the news broke, and I’m so incredibly glad that MN provides a space for those of us who have been shocked and disturbed by them to debate things in detail – this has been by some distance the most thoughtful and intelligent discussion I’ve come across, and I’m grateful to many of the eloquent, insightful posters on this thread for helping me to process things.

I’ve spent several days trying to work out why I’ve been so affected by this specific incident – the world is clearly full of shocking and senseless events, but this one has hit me particularly hard, to the extent that I’ve been able to think of little else. I think it’s because it highlights just how precarious the situation of women within Western societies still is, and how vulnerable we are as a group to having our hard-won rights eroded - almost overnight, it seems, given the Cologne mayor’s outrageous, victim-blaming response to these attacks.

The events in Cologne and elsewhere, and the authorities’/media’s lack of response to them has thrown into stark relief what I’ve suspected for a while – that women’s rights will always be subordinated to multiculturalism, political expediency and the need to preserve that nebulous entity, ‘community cohesion’. Woman simply aren’t important enough – not in the eyes of the Cologne attackers themselves, but – and potentially even more worryingly - not in the eyes of many of our supposed leaders.

I’m also another one who has been deeply disturbed by the virtual media blackout, and in particular by the risible stance the Guardian has taken on this. As a fully signed-up, lentil-munching liberal, the Guardian has long been my news outlet of choice, but lately I’ve become more aware of their twisting of every news story to fit an increasingly narrow, right-on agenda, and their focus on middle class metropolitan navel gazing at the expense of important news stories and proper investigative journalism. Glad that today’s CIF comments are overwhelmingly negative – the ‘editors’ picks’ alone sum up why they’ve just lost another reader. If they’ve managed to alienate a middle-class, London-dwelling creative like me, I’ve no idea who they do purport to represent (and I don’t think they do either).

The whole thing is just so frightening, and makes me incredibly fearful for Europe’s future.

'How can a change in culture be brought around?

Belgium has introduced classes to educate immigrants about equality - they have had to fight off claims that it's racist.'

You have to end political correctness so that people can start facing facts and speaking the truth instead of being ccalled racist for introducing classes on equality, and you have to end the destabilising wars in the Middle East so that people can return to their homelands and make a good life for themselves as they did in Iraq, Libya and Syria before those countries were destroyed by invasions and medieval Jihadis and the people that fund them.

'(Just heard that two very good MN posters have been thrown off the site!)'

Can you say more about that and why?

Egosum- That's the thing tho. Islam doesn't treat it's women as second class citizens it's the culture (some of it traditions from pre-Islamic cultures, some of it new, some of it made up by illiterate imams). Islam is the only religion in the world that has doctrine to allow women to inherit property/divorce etc. It even says men can only have more than one wife if they give to each of them their own house (which they can then take with them in the divorce). It says quite clearly in th Qu'ran that men have go out to earn their money (those men who live on benefits are actually living against Islamic principals) they have to give their money in it's entirety to their wives because their authority ends in the doorway of their house. Everything's quite clear and this is why Saudi feminists are able to legally challenge their rights in Saudi courts - only issue is that male centric societies don't want to enforce them.

For example in Saudi Arabia due to high unemployment amongst locals all jobs (even those in female lingerie shops) were given to local men. Women protested this as being unislamic (which it is), rich women started using their purchasing power to go to Dubai which has now become the regions lingerie and Hijab centre. Serious money in bras/womens clothing there and all because they allow women (mostly foreign) to work in womenswear shops.

Cologne's police chief resigning

Thrown off which site Claig MN or Guardian?

Back on the subject of the Cologne assaults ..

To be honest I cannot see this happening in the UK cities. Such gangs KNOW they would not get away with it. The British men would be on them like a ton of bricks - within minutes of the information getting through. Germany seem to me too cautious and slow off the mark - maybe it's German guilt I don't know, but they probably will be ready for it by next New Year. The citizens and the police.

These are my words of empowerment and positivity for today ...

spaceyboo we know that 1400 years ago Islam was progressive for women

it no longer is much of the worlds has moved on. while I agree women are not necessarily second class citizens in some muslim countries (no one is held higher that a grandmother or even higher great grandmother) their lives are not totally their own for many lives are still extremely restrictive in many muslims countries. If you live your live as a good muslim daughter, wife, mother then grandmother you will gain respect if not then you don't.

The men may carry the honour of the family name on their shoulders but it is responsibility to maintain this honour and keep it intact (yes that is what it is all about) is heavily and totally placed on the females of the family

Spacey, that's an interesting line, and one I've heard articulated before. And I think there would be a strong historical case for saying that Islam in the early Middle Ages gave women a stronger social and legal position than any of the alternative cultures. But mercifully attitudes to women have moved on since the early Middle Ages. And I can't get past one thing about the Koran. In my early twenties, as part of a search for spirituality, I read the Koran (obviously in translation - the Penguin translation), and couldn't really get past one surah in particular: the one in which it says that women's evidence is inadmissible in a court of law unless there are no male witnesses, in which case the evidence of two women may be taken as having equal weight to that of one man. Incidentally, I believe that this is behind some of the Sharia judgements alluded to upthread, where a man gets acquitted of rape and then his victim is stoned to death for fornication - because her uncorroborated word (which tends to be the only thing available in a lot of rape cases) is inadmissable in court.

I'd be interested to know how you square the circle on this one. I couldn't (hence did not become a Muslim, much as other bits of the Koran, especially when one takes into account the date at which it was written, are quite amazing).

Thank you for such a good post, MistressMia. You have said what the rest of us are not allowed to say. (Just heard that two very good MN posters have been thrown off the site!) I was just about to write that MistressMia's post was lucid and on point. I am shocked that posters have been thrown off the site. Without detracting from MistressMia's excellent argument, are you only allowed to say what she said if you declare your identity early on to be 'that' instead of 'this'?

That BBC article:
'Federal police recorded several complaints of sexual offences'
then later one
'The state police in Cologne have separately recorded 170 complaints of crimes, 117 of which involve sexual assault. There were two allegations of rape.'
'several' = '117'
'Several' = 'more than two but not many.'
One of those is wrong, then.

Minimising, much?

My Anger with the Guardian has moved on to the point that I find the editor's picks rather funny.

later on

Time to stop pandering to and respecting all faiths, regardless of what they say and to point out the absurdities, contradictions, hypocrisy and sheer vileness contained within the holy texts.

I think you are on to something here MistressMia. Ideas can only be fought with other ideas. Western society works by open criticism and debate. When it comes to Islam, this has broken down. I would argue that the critique of Christianity that we have had for several hundred years has been a good thing. It hasn't killed off Christianity. It's made it better. Why should Islam be exempt from the same "medicine?"