Reactions to mob attacks in Cologne

[Norseman]

You may have heard of the stories of rape gangs attacking women in Cologne (source BBC). Yes. That was a thing that actually happened, a group of around a thousand men went conducted at least 90 sexual assaults in Cologne during New Years.

Now the women are told that, well, let me just quote the article in the Independent:

The Mayor of Cologne said today that women should adopt a “code of conduct” to prevent future assault at a crisis meeting following the sexual attack of women by 1000 men on New Year’s eve.

Mayor Henriette Reker attended an emergency meeting with Chief of Police Wolfgang Albers and Wolfgang Wurm to discuss how to deal with the attack, where dozens of women were repeatedly touched and groped, with one case of alleged rape in the center of town.

“It is important to prevent such incidents from ever happening again,” said Mayor Reker, as reported in German by RP Online. “We have heard by now that they [the attacks] have occurred in other cities. This of course is not comforting to us.”

Hamburg also received complaints of sexual assault.

The crisis management team said prevention measures should include a code of conduct for young women and girls, and Mayor Reker said the existing code of conduct will be updated online.

The suggested code of conduct includes maintaining an arm’s length distance from strangers, to stick within your own group, to ask bystanders for help or to intervene as a witness, or to inform the police if you are the victim of such an assault.

Reports of similar events have come in from other German cities, there are also new that the Finnish police were out in force specifically to prevent such events and made some twenty arrests. That news however is mostly buried in other articles or (in Finlands case) only accessible through Finnish news sites.

If you had told me this three months ago I would have said that you needed to stop reading alarmist op-eds in the Daily Mail (or whatever your trashy anti-immigration tabloid is). The whole situation is made even worse by the fact that several mainstream news channels deliberately delayed reporting on the matter, which just further stokes the flames.

Did I by accident drop into the world that apparently Fox News pundits live in? This is just so unreal that I keep thinking that it is some bizarre, elaborate hoax.

EDIT: But never let it be said that the Germans have no sense of humour:



(Trans: One armslength and no one can come near me)

EDIT: Changed the headline again. Mostly due to getting this news article from Die Welt (translation). It would appear that according to the police the majority of the perpetrators were newly arrived Syrian refugees looking for sexual entertainment.

Just when you were hoping that it would "just" be regular criminals of North African descent...

[LadyTevar]

According to the BBC article I read, the original crowd of hundred was broken up by police. What happened next was gangs of teen-twenties youth "... of North African or Arab appearance" came back, and THEY were the ones groping and raping women.

The full article from the BBC is below:

Germany shocked by Cologne New Year gang assaults on women
The mayor of Cologne has summoned police for crisis talks after about 80 women reported sexual assaults and muggings by men on New Year's Eve.
The scale of the attacks on women at the city's central railway station has shocked Germany. About 1,000 drunk and aggressive young men were involved.
City police chief Wolfgang Albers called it "a completely new dimension of crime". The men were of Arab or North African appearance, he said.
Women were also targeted in Hamburg.
But the Cologne assaults - near the city's iconic cathedral - were the most serious, German media report. At least one woman was raped, and many were groped.
Most of the crimes reported to police were robberies. A volunteer policewoman was among those sexually molested.
The pretty Christmas market and medieval setting may look idyllic, but at Christmas and New Year the area around Cologne Cathedral is a notorious danger zone when it comes to pickpockets and theft.
Now the sexual harassment, and in one case rape, of dozens of women has shocked Germany.
What is particularly disturbing is that the attacks appear to have been organised. Around 1,000 young men arrived in large groups, seemingly with the specific intention of carrying out attacks on women.
Police in Hamburg are now reporting similar incidents on New Year's Eve in the party area of St Pauli. One politician says this is just the tip of the iceberg.
And there are real concerns about what will happen in February when the drunken street-parties of carnival season kick off.
Cologne will stage carnival events in February, with hundreds of thousands of revellers expected in the streets, as on New Year's Eve.
The police chief said "the assailants' behaviour is a real concern for me, also because of the carnival".
Police were deployed outside the central station because of the crowds on New Year's Eve, but failed to spot the many attacks, according to reports. There are also fears that a number of women did not report assaults.

'Monstrous' assaults
Cologne Mayor Henriette Reker said the attacks were "monstrous". "We cannot allow this to become a lawless area," she said, insisting that visitors could not come to the city fearing attack.
German Justice Minister Heiko Maas tweeted that "we won't tolerate these abhorrent assaults on women - all those responsible must be brought to justice".
One man described how his partner and 15-year-old daughter were surrounded by an enormous crowd outside the station and he was unable to help. "The attackers grabbed her and my partner's breasts and groped them between their legs."
A British woman visiting Cologne said fireworks had been thrown at her group by men who spoke neither German nor English. "They were trying to hug us, kiss us. One man stole my friend's bag," she told the BBC. "Another tried to get us into his 'private taxi'. I've been in scary and even life-threatening situations and I've never experienced anything like that."
The justice minister warned against linking the crimes to the issue of migrants and refugees.
Germany saw a record influx of migrants in 2015, which provoked an intense debate on immigration and marches by the anti-Islam Pegida movement.
Mr Maas said "the law does not discriminate regarding a person's origin or passport. All are equal before the law".
Cologne news website Koelner Stadt-Anzeiger says the suspects were already known to police because of frequent pickpocketing in and around Cologne central station.

Wider Problem
In Hamburg several women told police that gangs of men had molested and robbed them on New Year's Eve on the Reeperbahn - a street known for its boisterous night life.
Some similar attacks were reported in Stuttgart.
A policeman who was outside Cologne station during the New Year's Eve trouble told the city's Express news website that he had detained eight suspects. "They were all asylum seekers, carrying copies of their residence certificates," he said.
However, there was no official confirmation that asylum seekers had been involved in the violence. Commentators in Germany were quick to urge people not to jump to conclusions.
German n-tv news says Cologne police are considering calling in reinforcements from other parts of Germany and installing extra surveillance cameras, with telescopic lenses.

[Norseman]

Since the last time there's been more development and there seems to be growing confirmation that the mob contained a lot of asylum seekers, from both the telegraphand Deutche Welle.

The whole incident is just surreal and nightmarish, a month ago I would have said that this sort of thing just does not happen in the real world.

[frigidmagi]

I do want to note that only 2 rapes have been reported. There have been alot of attacks and groping, alot of it seems to be part of robbery and pickpocketing, where one guy (or group) starts groping a women so another can steal her purse or waller more easily.

That doesn't make this any better honestly. At least one British tourist had a firecracker thrown at her as well.

[Norseman]

I do want to note that only 2 rapes have been reported. There have been alot of attacks and groping, alot of it seems to be part of robbery and pickpocketing, where one guy (or group) starts groping a women so another can steal her purse or waller more easily.

That doesn't make this any better honestly. At least one British tourist had a firecracker thrown at her as well.

Changed headlines to mob attacks. Sorry if I got too clickbaity, but I am in a bit of a daze. I seriously never thought something like this might happen.

At least one German woman was scarred for life when they pushed a firecracker down her top. Fortunately it did not explode, it only burned, but still (BBC broadcast):
[youtube][/youtube]

I will be blunt: This incident is like something snatched from a right wing op-ed in the Daily Mail. I actually understand why a lot of people are in denial right now, even why the German authorities were in serious denial initially. Yet here we are, now what?

[frigidmagi]

Hopefully they find these people, arrest them and sent them to jail for a long time. A message needs to be sent that this is absolutely unacceptable behavior and will not be tolerated.

[Norseman]

There's an RT (yes I know, but still) newsreport out on this now, for those who don't want to read:

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[Lys]

As Frigid says, the best way to deal with this is to arrest the people responsible and punish them appropriately. Generally speaking people are a lot less likely to commit crimes if they believe there will be negative consequences toward them, which makes making sure they catch as many of those responsible as possible of paramount importance. That way we can teach these people that such behaviour is not accepted, that they will be caught, and they would enjoy being well behaved much more than being imprisoned. We know that people do modify their behaviour in light of better enforcement, as shown by the fact that the United States has a large number of immigrants from the third world, and they do tend to obey the law to a greater extent here than they did in their home countries.

Also Norseman that's not RT, it's Zee News, an Indian news channel, and the broadcast is in Hindi.

[Norseman]

Also Norseman that's not RT, it's Zee News, an Indian news channel, and the broadcast is in Hindi.

Ugh. Fixed. Must have gotten the wrong URL somehow.

[frigidmagi]

Turns out's not just Cologne.

Attack and gang rape of 2 teenage girls in South German Town

Similar attacks in Kalmar in Sweden.

Zurich as well

Asylum Seekers the majority of arrested. Additional statements from police state that they have been told that sexual harassment and assualt was the main goal of most of the young men involved with theft being a bonus.

All of this said, I do not advise panic or violence. You're going to need more cops however and you're going to have to devote resources to making it clear to the new people that certain types of behavior are unacceptable and will be harshly punished.

You shouldn't violate any human rights, but you should make sure you do in fact punish them (them being the men committing the crimes) firmly and without quibble.

[Cynical Cat]

There was a similar kind of attack in New York in 2000. It didn't get as much media attention and the police methodically took interviews and checked camera footage and hunted down, arrested, and prosecuted everyone they could which is exactly what is needed now.

[General Havoc]

The base fact is though that the right wing in the above countries is going to make a lot of hay over this issue. And the immediate reaction by the rest of the parties that anyone who expresses concern about this happening is in-fact an inhuman racist, will help them do so.

[Lys]

Meanwhile, in Helsinki the police were tipped off that something like this may have been in the offing and increased security accordingly. While the incidence of sexual assault on New Year's Eve was still unusually high, it was not as bad as in Cologne. What a shock, turns out that effective policing helps deter crime!

Also while my Boyfriend's morality is occasionally a little more Iron Age than i would like, i'm starting to see the merits of his argument that when one takes on large number of refugees from a radically different culture, the best thing to do is to scatter them thinly across the whole of the nation rather than allow them to concentrate in particular areas. If they are kept small groups isolated from each other, then their only support networks will have to built from and composed of the local inhabitants, thereby forcing cultural assimilation. If it's not possible to do this because they're too numerous, then you've obviously taken on too many.

[Norseman]

And the German Justice minister just said that the attacks were likely organized. Apparently social media was used to gather up the crowd for the attack.

[youtube][/youtube]

The count in Cologne is now up to 516(40% of which were sexual assault), meanwhile in Hamburgthe count is now up to 133 cases. So yeah, that happened.

[Lys]

So charge people for conspiracy on top of sexual assault and robbery.

You know, it's kind of disturbing how these things seem almost exclusively aimed at the local population. Like there seems to have been a deliberate targeting of German women here, and in Britain the Pakistani rape rings seemed focused on abusing white girls almost exclusively. Is it that an opportunity thing? Like they expect Muslim girls to be guarded by their male relatives and there's more white girls to go around so it's easier to prey on them? Are they just more inherently inclined to rape outside their peer group? Do they feel like they're some kind of conquering army and acting accordingly? The fuck is going on?

[Norseman]

I wrote this in response to some posts on another forum, but I figured I'd post it here too because it covers some issues that frustrate me enormously. There are some people who are now saying it is racist to say there are aspects of immigrant culture that needs to be confronted and dealt with.

[This attitude] show so perfectly well why the Sweden Democrats are now polling to be the biggest party in Sweden come the next elections. People have stopped hearing the, "But we cannot judge the whole group for the action of a few," because it always seems to be followed by an implicit, "So you should shut up you racist pig, you are the real problem! And stop persecuting the immigrants!"

It may not be what you mean, it may not even be what you are saying, but right now that is all people are hearing.

Also to be blunt: YES OF COURSE IT IS CULTURE!

What the devil else would it be? Do brown people have a rape gene? Are they hit by magical rape-a-lot mind control beams the moment they enter Europe? What could it be other than culture? Because quite frankly blaming anything else is either racist or insane.

There are among some immigrants group certain cultural mores that, when combined with culture shock or long term alienation, can turn truly toxic. The fact that Cologne could happen is ample proof of that.

Why else would Norway (not exactly a hotbed of racist oppression) see fit to introduce special classes teaching immigrants about Norwegian cultural mores and proper behaviour in regards to women? Have Norwegian politicians become racists? Or do they tacitly accept that sometimes you need to quietly confront and deal with toxic values, even when they are held by oppressed minorities?

Once more with feeling: YES OF COURSE IT IS CULTURE!

The only question is what do we do about it. There was a time when we could all have confronted this fact in a quiet, but firm manner. Put in additional funding for schools in immigrant areas to make them better suited to teach the local language and local mores; create voluntary (as in genuinely) work experience programs for immigrant youths; have an educational program for new immigrants which not only teaches a basic understanding of the language, but really pushes the cultural differences angle; and put newly arrived immigrant criminals (who are not slated for deportation) through a lengthy rehabilitation program (though no lengthier than a regular jail sentence) to make sure they actually understand society condemns their acts and why.

Then for the natives you could have been honest about the ethnicity of criminals and the problems caused by the arrival of a large new ethnic group, but explain the issues honestly, "Yes they may cost us quite a bit of money now, but in twenty years they will be integrated and their children will be too. Then their contributions will more than pay back the outlay we have now." Openly face the problems and offer solutions.

Now these are not exhaustive solutions, perhaps some of my ideas are bad ones, yet that is the gist of what could have been done.

Instead we are going to see xenophobic (and sometimes genuinely facist) parties gain power across Europe.

But hey, at least you won't need a dog-whistle to figure out who the racists are!

[Josh]

Mass immigration waves always bring a host of complications and problems, along with typically the formation of new organized crime issues.

If you're going to open the gates, you damn well better be ready for all the hassles that are coming.

[Norseman]

And yet another cover-up, sort of, has been discovered as ... ugh...

MIGRANT SEX ATTACK 'COVER-UP': Welcome party for Cologne refugees turned into mass groping

It was in fact posted about on the website of the local Refugees Welcome chapter, but it appears that no press organisation picked it up. Probably because it was not untill after Cologne that one of the women dared to press charges. In fact the only people who did pick up on it seems to have been the right-wing blogosphere (literally Pamela Geller).

Why does everyone seem so determined to prove ****** PAMELA GELLER right?

But what we keep seeing is news of police covering up crimes and people not daring to press charges for fear of being called racist. Then with Cologne that dam burst and... it seems that more and more keeps getting out.

[Lys]

That reminds me of the incidents in Britain were reports of South Asian men running rape and forced prostitution rings were ignored and suppressed for years because the local authorities were afraid of being called racist. Is it really that hard to just not automatically suspect every member of a given ethnic group of being a criminal, while also not acquiring a phobia of ever accusing specific individuals within that group of criminal acts? Because that's really all most of us want. Don't treat innocent people like criminals, and treat criminals like criminals. Why is this so difficult?

[Josh]

With politics, nothing works right. Without politics, nothing works.

That's not a justification by any stretch, but that's how these things happen.