Mass sexual assault in Cologne, including rape cases

[Thanas]

At this point I do not think anything can be ruled out. Might be gangs, might be frustrated assholes deciding to have some fun and profit.

[K. A. Pital]

Frustrated assholes find it easy to assemble in gangs of 5-6, maybe 10 people. But more, and in several towns? Unlikely if you ask me. Though clearly the question can be answered only by the police here.

[BabelHuber]

Meanwhile, it seems that refugees were actually part of the crowd in Cologne. It is not yet clear, however, if they were involved in the crimes or not.

Source (article is in German):
http://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/inla ... 01656.html

[Thanas]

More updates:

- number of rape victims has increased to two, total number of cases has been increased to 120+ in cologne alone
- police have identified 16 perpetrators and are trying to find their identities.
- there have been similar attacks in Stuttgart. Number and extent is unclear.
- 4 Syrians are in custody for gang-raping two 14 and 15 yo girls in Weil am Rhein. Three of them are in custody, a fourth one has fled. Probably unrelated to the other attacks.

All in all, this has probably done more damage to refugee causes than the threat of terrorists among them.

[Thanas]

Meanwhile, it seems that refugees were actually part of the crowd in Cologne. It is not yet clear, however, if they were involved in the crimes or not.

Source (article is in German):
http://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/inla ... 01656.html

Key point of the article (translation mine)

...of the 15 preliminarily detained persons 14 were from Syria and Afghanistan, according to a police officer.

It paints quite a chilling picture - a highly intoxicated mob of people, several groups attacking women at will and police not having enough reserves to contain the problem.

[Metahive]

I concede for the time being on the issue of refugees being possibly involved, with the caveat that I personally find the cited news articles to sound more like treading the rumour mill rather than divulging actual facts.

I will however not concede on the issue of racist bias pervading this whole affair:

1.
The motivation of the perpetrators is simplistically broken down to them being from a specific area and a certain culture. Whatever other, more complex or more personal motives they might have had (angry about lacking future perspectives, peer-pressure, economic woes, psychpathy etc.) is ignored in favour of simply turning them into the "other" and in the same breath putting an entire group of people under general suspicion. If you're Middle-Eastern or North-African looking, you are a potential sexual-offender because you share those characteristics with a few dozen people who comitted crimes. Do I have to point out how bigotted this is? Let's turn the issue around, would anybody here be satisfied with explaining the acts of the NSU (a neo-nazi gang that went on a killing spree in the early 2000s) as simply them being German? Since Germans have a known history of being violently xenophobic and all.
I hope not. Whatever reasons the NSU may have had, it's not appropriate to explain it away as them being "German". So why is it any better to immediately blame the actions of the Sylvester criminals solely on their culture and heritage?

TRACT
The first explanation lies in the human psyche, only people considered within one's "in-group" are accepted to be complex beings capable of reasoned decisions, everyone else is expected to instead comply with whatever popular stereotype one holds about that group. Tribalist reasoning. If you want a demonstration of this mindset, look no further than Star Trek. Human ST characters can have all sorts of personalities and motivations while alien characters as a group will inevitably adhere to the stereotype assigned to that group (Klingons are warlike, Cardassians are fascist, Romulans are scheming, Ferengi are greedy etc.).
The other explanation is that in othering criminals, one can reassure oneself of never being in danger of replicating their acts. Pretending that a mugger mugs people because of him belonging to a mugger-race means that one doesn't need to face the possibility of ever becoming a mugger oneself. /TRACT

2.
One reason this issue is becoming this big is because the suspected perpetrators are foreigners or foreign-looking. If the media had not made any mention about the ethnicity of the perpetrators, dismissive answers like the ones given by Purple and Armore Pierce would have been way more common. We would probably also have gotten a fair share of victim blaming ("she wore skimply clothing and drank alcohol, she asked for it!") or backhanded compliments ("she should be happy because it means she's hot!"). "Foreigners going after our women" is a popular racist rallying call. One only has to go to the American civil rights era to see the very same thing playing out there.
I say this because I followed the feminism debate since 2011, when Rebecca Watson saying "guys don't do that" in relation to getting cornered and hit upon by strangers unleashed a deluge of misogyny on her. We might not be as backwards as Saudi-Arabia when it comes to women's rights, but don't delude yourself into thinking that everything is hunky-dory, not when someone like Anita Sarkeesian receives bomb threats for simply wishing to speak about these things at a college.

[cosmicalstorm]

I admit the title was wrong, but I also admit I'm a bit unsure what qualifies as rape. I would have felt raped if someone jammed their fingers into my butthole, not assaulted, but very much raped. Oh well this title is more fitting.

At least I got to say Merkel is clumsy, with hundreds of thousands of young men arriving it does not matter if their skin is colored. You leave a couple of hundred thousands of young and hormonal men with nothing to do and this will happen.

Every commander in the military history know you never leave soldier aged men to rest for more than a day or two if you want to avoid riots.

Here is the Telegraph (torygraph?)

Suspects in Cologne sex attacks 'claimed to be Syrian refugees'
Leaked police report claims senior police officers feared fatalities and that one of those involved in attacks told officers: “I am Syrian. You have to treat me kindly. Mrs Merkel invited me"

“When we arrived, our vehicles were pelted with firecrackers,” the report said. “In the forecourt and on the cathedral steps were a thousand people, mostly males of an immigrant background who were indiscriminately throwing fireworks and bottles into the crowd.”

Even the appearance of police did not stop the violence.

“Around 10.45pm, the station forecourt filled with people of an immigrant background. Women literally had to run the gauntlet through the mass of drunk men, in a way you can’t describe,” the report said.

“We came to the conclusion that the situation threatened chaos or serious injury, if it didn’t lead to fatalities.”

Police decided to clear the area but met with resistance and were “repeatedly bombarded with fireworks and pelted with bottles”. The report describes members of the crowd as having consumed a “massive” quantity of alcohol and other intoxicating substances such as cannabis.

Police succeeded in clearing the area by around 12.15am but the violence continued as the crowd moved into the back streets.

“Many women came to officers shocked and crying and reported sex assaults. Police forces were unable to respond to all the events, assaults and offences. There were just too many at the same time.”

Police were heavily outnumbered and prevented from reaching victims by the crowd, the report said. Several offenders who were ordered to leave returned to the scene and made a joke of it.

More than 150 women have filed criminal complaints, three-quarters of them for sexual assault. Two cases of rape have been reported.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... ugees.html

[K. A. Pital]

Ignoring or not mentioning the race of the perpetrators (colorblind reporting) is something that does not exist in either Europe or Asia. I think that such reporting could do a lot of harm in the greater picture, though, because it creates the impression of the government trying to put issues under the rug. Sensationalist right-wing media will find such incidents and spin them anyway. So what is accomplished by not publicly admitting that this is a criminal group with a certain background? Very little, I think...

What is really needed - a colorblind police reaction that would severely punish such incidents to prevent them in the future, not a police that catches foreign-looking people at train stations but does not dare or want to walk into the ghettos, take on the gangs, and set things straight there. That is a first step, the end step is to eliminate the ghetto as a phenomenon, offer perspectives to all residents and create a harsh but universal welfare state. Then, and only then, can a nation-state be considered safe for the people of all nationalities.

[Colonel Olrik]

There are no Ghettos in Germany, and contrary to what some people may think a situation like this is actually a first and extremely shocking for the people who live here. Even the big cities in Germany were until recently considered safe - safe enough for women to walk alone anywhere and at any time with negligible risk of something bad happening - something which is part of the "comfortable" German way of life. Comparisons to life in American inner city streets or wherever are for this reason irrelevant. Everything that I read and hear points to an exhausted police without enough means to control the new state of events and of huge number of asylum seekers and illegal emigrants indeed roaming free as they leave their accommodations unchecked.

[K. A. Pital]

There are no Ghettos in Germany, and contrary to what some people may think a situation like this is actually a first and extremely shocking for the people who live here.

I agree it is shocking, but please, the ghettos are there. I don't want to sound grim or exaggerate things, but the German ghettos are dangerous. Just not to an extreme point, like in the US, Latin America or South Africa. Of course, they are not slums. Of course, I have only been to what, 5-6 major cities in the nation? Still, I think saying "there are no ghettos" is wrong. This is not a unique German issue either. If you ask me about Paris, for example I can affirm that there are ghettos. The German ones are not as bad, but they exist.

Everything that I read and hear points to an exhausted police without enough means to control the new state of events and of huge number of asylum seekers and illegal emigrants indeed roaming free as they leave their accommodations unchecked.

I would say in some cities the situation was not ideal already. The local white youth is just as dangerous, and they are often part of a chav-like subculture. But I agree that it is worsening dramatically because the state did not provide the resources to adequately police large towns.

But a police, total surveillance state is not necessarily the solution to this.

[Sir Sirius]

BBC News has a few videos of the victims describing the events. I really recommend that everyone watch those videos, especially those who have been downplaying the events as nothing more then business as usual.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35250903

[K. A. Pital]

Köln's mayor has shown herself as a complete elitarian idiot, proposing a "code of conduct" for girls.

God fuck the state politicians who are out of touch with reality. "Code of conduct"? What's that supposed to mean? If a girl is dressed in winter clothes, that's not a fucking strip bar. Dumbasses.

[Broomstick]

Sure it can be. While the western world still isn't perfect, it's a helluva lot worse in patriarchal societies. Sure, there are Egyptian men who treat women decently, but that doesn't prevent that misogyny is endemic there.

Misogyny is endemic in the west, too. I'm not interested, in this thread, about getting bogged down in the degrees of misogyny. Saying "but it's worse over there" is not an excuse for bad behavior here.

I doubt anyone is denying this. I do not think this changes the fact that such mass sexual assault was something extremely uncommon and this incident was not committed by any westerner.

There is, however, precedent for that sort of mass sexual assault in the west.

However, this does not mean that it is likely that we will see 60 plus westerners all committing an organised sexual assault in a western country.

Although, as the link shows, it certainly can and has happened.

That's why I say this is not a cultural problem as much as a gender problem. It crosses cultural lines.

[Broomstick]

And yet we don't even know wether it was sexual attacks or distraction robberies.

Is there any reason it can't be both?

I admit the title was wrong, but I also admit I'm a bit unsure what qualifies as rape. I would have felt raped if someone jammed their fingers into my butthole, not assaulted, but very much raped. Oh well this title is more fitting.

There are actual, legal definitions of rape you can look up.

But, as a general rule, any form of penetration is considered rape. Sexual assault is unwanted touching that does not involve penetration. Sexual harassment is verbal. As a general rule, strict definitions do vary by legal jurisdiction.

Police decided to clear the area but met with resistance and were “repeatedly bombarded with fireworks and pelted with bottles”. The report describes members of the crowd as having consumed a “massive” quantity of alcohol and other intoxicating substances such as cannabis.

I have to wonder if there were two additional factors at work:

1) People coming from an area where violence, riots, and war have been happening for a couple years, so their inhibitions towards such may be lower than in Europe in general

2) People unfamiliar with alcohol/drugs (were these commonly/easily available in Syria?) now in a place where it is easier and cheaper to obtain such, and less societal prohibition on drinking leading to people consuming to excess while unfamiliar with how it will affect them.

Neither of which make what happened OK, but it's important to look at all factors involved in this sort of thing. As a general rule, lowered inhibitions do not lead to good behavior in crowds.

Köln's mayor has shown herself as a complete elitarian idiot, proposing a "code of conduct" for girls.

God fuck the state politicians who are out of touch with reality. "Code of conduct"? What's that supposed to mean? If a girl is dressed in winter clothes, that's not a fucking strip bar. Dumbasses.

Callin on women to modify their behavior in response to male misbehavior has a very long history and as this mayor demonstrates it is not limited to men.

[K. A. Pital]

When I read about the horrible gang rape cases in India, and their rape problems in general, I also read - not willingly - some such comments by their politicians. But, as this shows, the attitude is not confined to men, and it is not a "Third World problem" either. It is not a mainstream politics problem either, although the mayor is CDU-affiliated, I believe, and was herself stabbed by a knife-wielding ultra-right "fighter". She should know better than to tell women that they can protect themselves by "staying at arm's length".

[Thanas]

She has also staked her political fortune on the successful integration of migrants into society. So it is no surprise that she is trying very hard to pin the blame on others.

[the atom]

Germany has been a peaceful and humanitarian place for a long time, what happens if this immigration thing causes ze Germans to go back to far right parties and opinions? What's going to happen come next set of elections? People are not very logical about the whole "strangers raping our women" issue, I think it triggers some ancient instincts.

Firstly, right-wing xenophobia has literally zero basis in reality. In the states, Mexican immigration, official or not, has been dropping steadily since the 80s to the point where it's actually in the negatives. The American right remains utterly convinced that the country is being overrun by Mexicans and that the only possible solution is the great wall of Trump.

I'm pretty positive the European right doesn't need actual refugees, much less poorly behaving refugees, to start a xenophobic panic.

Secondly, you (as an individual) could start the process of preventing the spread of xenophobic propaganda by not fucking spreading it.

[madd0ct0r]

@atom. No. That is unfair on comicalstorm.
He and I don't agree on a lot of things, but he started this thread with a reasonable source about an ugly situation that only seems to be getting uglier. And while I agree with Metahive that the responses have an ugly racial side to it, that's because this event couldn't be custom made to better trigger tribalism responses. It's an ugly fuckup of a mess and I hope the police come down like a well aimed tonne of bricks.
Thankyou Comicalstorm for posting it, and being relatively restrained while the details filtered out.


@Broomstick
Legally, I hope they get done for both. From the victim's point of view its definitely both. At that point I was clinging to the hope it was a small criminal gang rather then widespread sexual harraament. It seemed less bad, and easier to for society to excise. Stolen goods will be much much easier to build cases around too.

[Colonel Olrik]

There are no Ghettos in Germany, and contrary to what some people may think a situation like this is actually a first and extremely shocking for the people who live here.

I agree it is shocking, but please, the ghettos are there. I don't want to sound grim or exaggerate things, but the German ghettos are dangerous. Just not to an extreme point, like in the US, Latin America or South Africa. Of course, they are not slums. Of course, I have only been to what, 5-6 major cities in the nation? Still, I think saying "there are no ghettos" is wrong. This is not a unique German issue either. If you ask me about Paris, for example I can affirm that there are ghettos. The German ones are not as bad, but they exist.

Paris has ghettos, yes. All German big cities have poorer neighborhoods, and some where foreign communities are the majority, but describing them as Ghettos can also be considered an exaggeration. Or you make the category so large that the word may lose a lot of its meaning. The social state in Germany is strong, and the combination of education system and economy make youth unemployment very small in comparison to almost all other OECD countries - unemployment being a big reason for youth unrest and poverty, obviously.

I would say in some cities the situation was not ideal already. The local white youth is just as dangerous, and they are often part of a chav-like subculture. But I agree that it is worsening dramatically because the state did not provide the resources to adequately police large towns.

Koln's city government failed miserably - in this case it has not directly to do with the state.

But a police, total surveillance state is not necessarily the solution to this.

Munich is known as a city with heavy police presence - it's also known to be (usually) boring and safe. I have children, nowadays I like my cities boring.

[K. A. Pital]

Paris has ghettos, yes. All German big cities have poorer neighborhoods, and some where foreign communities are the majority, but describing them as Ghettos can also be considered an exaggeration. Or you make the category so large that the word may lose a lot of its meaning. The social state in Germany is strong, and the combination of education system and economy make youth unemployment very small in comparison to almost all other OECD countries - unemployment being a big reason for youth unrest and poverty, obviously.

The social state is not as strong for non-EU citizens - which a lot of the recent migrants are. Getting a job in a major city without European education? McDonalds burger flipper or crate mover, that for sure, but beyond that? Problems. A person with a non-EU diploma looks at up to 6 months job seeking before getting a position (in the best case, and in case the diploma is related to IT, programming or the like), the hiring process for a restaurant waiter can last 3 months easily. All witnessed personally. Sure, Germany's labour market is in a great shape, compared to other nations in Europe. But it only underscores just how really shitty and ugly the situation in other nations is.

Perhaps ghetto is too strong a word, but a poor segregated neighborhood certainly moves dangerously close to this category. Germany's efforts to prevent segregation are commendable, but sometimes even the best effort fails.

Koln's city government failed miserably - in this case it has not directly to do with the state.

The police outright ignoring drunken gangs of miscreants has happened before. I have seen it many times. Especially on New Year's Eve. When roving gangs of drunk and drugged thugs roam the streets freely and they ignore complaints because "people are having fun".

Munich is known as a city with heavy police presence - it's also known to be (usually) boring and safe. I have children, nowadays I like my cities boring.

I like my cities orderly. Not boring. Orderly is not the same as boring. Gunshots in the street right next to me, like in Berlin, are the wrong kind of fun. I had enough of this shit at where I originally come from.

[wautd]

There are now reports from the police officers that, in contrast what the Major and police commissioner are claiming, most of the attackers were indeed newly arrived asylum seekers from Syria. They also estimate the group consisted closer to 2000 instead of 1000 sexually frustrated deviants and that their main motivation was sexual, not theft. Quite worrying for the coming future...

[FTeik]

Considering, that nothing comparable (in the sense of organized and on that scale) happened prior to the fugative-crisis we are looking at two cases of disservice. One by the perpetrators themselves, since they are ruining the reputation of fugatives and the second by the authorities of Cologne by trying to cover it up or play it down, eroding what good-will the population has towards its politicians, who want to help the fugatives.

Also considering, that since 2000 some 16,000 jobs as policemen have been cut and the remaining have accumulated 10 million hours of overtime according to Police-unions I'm not surprised, that they couldn't handle the situation on Sylvester (also, as far as Cologne is concerned, it wouldn't be the first huge fuck-up).

[Edi]

If there are repeats of incidents like this, there is no reason not to switch into dealing with such crowds the same way they would be dealt with in Assad's Syria. If they can't abide by the rules of the land they have come to, perhaps they will understand when they are treated according to the rules of the place they left.

[salm]

If there are repeats of incidents like this, there is no reason not to switch into dealing with such crowds the same way they would be dealt with in Assad's Syria. If they can't abide by the rules of the land they have come to, perhaps they will understand when they are treated according to the rules of the place they left.

Or perhaps we shouldn´t use dictatorships as role models.
There are plenty of reasons not to use dictatorshops as role models. In fact that would be the worst reaction possible.
If they turn out to be asylum seakers and the crime carries a sentance of 3 years in prison or more they can be deported. Otherwise they should get whatever anyone else would get, no matter where they are from.

[Colonel Olrik]

Update: the number of reported offenses is now over 200. Around three quarters are (also) sexual offenses.

The social state is not as strong for non-EU citizens - which a lot of the recent migrants are. Getting a job in a major city without European education? McDonalds burger flipper or crate mover, that for sure, but beyond that? Problems. A person with a non-EU diploma looks at up to 6 months job seeking before getting a position (in the best case, and in case the diploma is related to IT, programming or the like), the hiring process for a restaurant waiter can last 3 months easily. All witnessed personally. Sure, Germany's labour market is in a great shape, compared to other nations in Europe. But it only underscores just how really shitty and ugly the situation in other nations is.

According to EU and German law, non EU people cannot legally enter Germany on a work visa without already having a job secured, unless they're coming to study. The job they find must be qualified work and must pay above the self sufficiency threshold. After a non-EU citizen works here for two years and five years respectively, they have the right to unemployment money and social assistance, exactly like EU citizens and native Germans for that matter. So, you're talking about either illegal immigrants - which will surely be deported when found - or EU'ers from the Eastern states. Asylum seekers are different: they receive free housing and an allowance which is exactly the assistance any native, destitute native German receives. Plus integration and language courses, and free medical care of the same quality I receive. That so many are currently living in temporary lodgings is a consequence of the overwhelming number of people arriving. There's no housing available, many poorer Germans (and a lot of older immigrants who have the right to social assistance) are resenting the newcomers for a simple reason: there is no more free or subsidized housing to be had for them.

Perhaps ghetto is too strong a word, but a poor segregated neighborhood certainly moves dangerously close to this category. Germany's efforts to prevent segregation are commendable, but sometimes even the best effort fails.

You're right, but in the end someone is paying for the party and with over one third of Germans requiring social assistance themselves there's only so much you can do. Even the few Syrians, etc who are qualified have trouble to find a well paid job. Personal anecdote: my wife is a medical doctor and had recently an Egyptian Doctor training under her. After the first few weeks he started talking to her, and he was constantly overwhelmed by the machines, medicines and social relationships required in a modern, western hospital. This is no different with engineers, etc. Germany is a highly productive, mechanized country, where even garbish collectors have to operate complex machinery.

I like my cities orderly. Not boring. Orderly is not the same as boring. Gunshots in the street right next to me, like in Berlin, are the wrong kind of fun. I had enough of this shit at where I originally come from.

Orderly is indeed a better word for it than boring.