Thread: After sex assaults, German city braces for far-right rally

COLOGNE, Germany—The German city of Cologne, still shaken by a spate of sexual assaults in a crowd of migrants on New Year’s Eve, was braced Saturday for a rally of the xenophobic PEGIDA movement.

The Islamophobic protest was planned from 1300 GMT in the central square where hundreds of women last week ran a gauntlet of groping hands, lewd insults and robberies in mob violence that has shocked Germany.

Most of the assailants were of Arabic or North African background, according to eye-witnesses, police and media reports.

Far-right groups have pointed to the assaults, including two reported rapes, as proof that Chancellor Angela Merkel’s liberal migrant policy—which brought 1.1 million new asylum seekers to Germany last year—is driving the country into chaos.

The co-founder of PEGIDA, short for “Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident,” Lutz Bachmann, posted a photo of himself on social media with the slogan “Rape Refugees not Welcome.”

In a similar vein, a leader of the populist right-wing Alternative for Germany party, which has polled at around 10 percent in surveys ahead of several state elections this year, claimed that the events gave a “taste of the looming collapse of culture and civilisation.”

Police expect around 1,000 backers of PEGIDA and the local far-right group Pro NRW, as well as counter-demonstrators from the group “Cologne against Right-wingers,” local media said.

Frenzied crush

The mob violence at the start of 2016 has heightened popular fears of worse to come, and threatened to tip what was long a broadly welcoming mood that last September saw crowds cheering Syrian refugees arriving by train.

Details of what happened in the frenzied crush remain hazy. Police have laid no charges but pointed to more than 30 suspects, almost all of them migrants and including many asylum seekers.

Among the suspects were nine Algerians, eight Moroccans, five Iranians, four Syrians, one Iraqi and one Serb, as well as two Germans and one US national, the interior ministry said Friday.

It was unclear how many offenders may be long-time migrants or from a scene of drug dealers and pickpockets known to lurk around the central railway station, and how many may have been newly-arrived asylum seekers.

On Friday, criticism of the Cologne police’s failure to stop the violence, and subsequent obfuscation, claimed the scalp of police chief Wolfgang Albers, who was suspended in a bid to “restore public confidence” in the police force.

Cologne police were slow to unveil the true extent of the carnage, and the politically-charged fact that the hostile crowd was made up mostly of migrants.

A day after the chaos, Cologne police had tweeted “festive atmosphere, celebrations largely peaceful,” and the events did not make national headlines for four days.

On social media, where PEGIDA backers have long railed against the “lying press,” the media has also been accused of seeking to suppress the attacks for days in an effort to be “politically correct.”

Right to stay

Politicians from all major parties, meanwhile, have reacted by pledging tougher law and order, and to speed up deportations of criminal migrants.

Merkel—while staying the course generally on welcoming war refugees and maintaining that “we can do it”—has also vowed to bring down a “tough response by the state” on those who break German laws.

On Saturday leaders of her conservative Christian Democrats were set to huddle for a policy meeting in the southwestern city of Mainz.

Among the proposals were ones to stiffen penalties for attacks against police and emergency responders and to scrap the refugee or asylum status of anyone sentenced to a non-parole prison term.

Under current laws, asylum seekers are only forcibly sent back if they have been sentenced to jail terms of at least three years, and if their lives are not at risk in their countries of origin.

“The question that arises after Cologne,” Merkel said late Friday, “is when do you lose your right to stay with us?”

“I have to say that for me, we must take it away sooner,” the chancellor said. “We must do this for us, and for the many refugees who were not part of the events in Cologne.”

Read more: After sex assaults, German city braces for far-right rally | Inquirer News

“Rapefugees Not Welcome” T-Shirt Storm

A new T-shirt design based on the “Refugees Welcome” logo—but instead portraying the “refugees” as “rapefugees”—is not only sweeping the anti-invasion movement in Europe but also has the far left establishment scrambling to suppress any news of it.

The “Rapefugees Not Welcome” meme first appeared on Facebook on January 7, as the extent of the mass refugee-criminal attacks across European cities became widely known.One of the images circulated on the Internet showed Lutz Bachman, founder of the Pegida movement in Germany, sporting the T-Shirt design, prompting a wave of hysterical protests by leftists, offended that anyone would dare actually tell the truth about the obvious link between the nonwhite invasion of Europe and the mass sex attacks of New Year’s Eve.

On the German language Focus news service, for example, under the “Reader comments” section, one reader wrote, under the heading “Rapefugees not welcome” that this “was the best I have read on this whole discussion today on the net. Herbert Wehner said in the ’80s: “If we continue to fail to control the asylum problem, then one day we will be swept away by our own voters. Then we will be turned into a whipping boy, I tell you—we will be the accomplices…when fascist organizations are active, it is not enough to warn against xenophobia. We need to address the root causes, because otherwise the population will develop the will and the power to get the problem under control.”


?Rapefugees Not Welcome? T-Shirt Storm - The New Observer

Hundreds Protest in Germany Following New Year's Eve Assaults

Hundreds of far-right demonstrators gathered in the German city of Cologne to protest a rash of sexual assaults and robberies that took place during New Year's Eve celebrations in the city.

The attacks, which have been blamed on men of North African and Arab origin, have fueled calls for tighter controls on the country's immigration policies.

On Saturday, hundreds of protesters from the anti-immigrant Pegida movement carried flags and banners, while nearby separate rallies were held by left-wing counter-demonstrators and a group protesting violence against women.

Hundreds of police have been deployed near the city's main train station, with some mild clashes reported.

Tighter asylum laws

Merkel German Chancellor Angel Merkel on Saturday proposed changes to German law that would make it easier to deny asylum to refugees convicted of crimes.

"The right to a residence status and an asylum procedure can be lost if someone is convicted, on probation or jailed," Merkel told reporters after a meeting of her conservative Christian Democratic Party.

Around 1,000 men are said to have surrounded, harassed and sexually assaulted women, many of whom were also robbed of their belongings, in front of Cologne's main train station on New Year's Eve.

More than 170 people have filed criminal complaints, including at least one report of a rape.

The Interior Ministry says German police have identified 32 suspects, with at least 20 of them being asylum seekers.

Cologne's police chief was dismissed on Friday over criticism of his force's handling of the incidents.

Some 1.1 million people registered as asylum seekers in Germany in 2015.

Hundreds Protest in Germany Following New Year's Eve Assaults

Protests in Cologne after assaults; Merkel pledges new laws

Moved to News. Subject Islamic Immigration

This is disturbing. Imagine that is you own daughter....

Muslim Mass Rape Europe



Published on Jan 7, 2016
Muslims return European Hospitality in their special way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b02s-e6-zB4

Video: Robert Spencer on Fox News on Philadelphia jihad shooting and Cologne Muslim sex assaults

Jihad Watch director Robert Spencer appeared on Fox’s America’s HQ with Uma Pemmaraju on January 9, 2016 to discuss the jihad shooting of a Philadelphia policeman, the mass sex assaults by Muslims

in Cologne, Germany and other cities on New Year’s Eve, and the authorities’ denial of the jihad motive.

(...more ) Video: Robert Spencer on Fox News on Philadelphia jihad shooting and Cologne Muslim sex assaults

Anti-refugee right-wingers go on rampage in Leipzig, say police

Over 200 masked right-wing supporters, carrying placards with racist overtones, went on a rampage in the eastern city of Leipzig on Monday night, throwing fireworks, breaking windows and vandalizing buildings, police said.

Emotions are running high in German cities after gangs of young migrant men sexually assaulted women at New Year in mass attacks in Cologne and other towns.

The attacks have deepened public scepticism towards Chancellor Angela Merkel's open-door refugee policy and her mantra that Germany can cope with the 1.1 million migrants who arrived in the country last year. It has also fueled right-wing groups.

As roughly 2,000 anti-Muslim "LEGIDA" protesters marched peacefully in the city center, police said a separate group of 211 people walked through the southern Connewitz district before setting of fireworks, erecting barricades and vandalizing property. The top floor of one building caught fire.

The group carried a placard reading "Leipzig bleibt Helle", or "Leipzig stays light", an apparent reference to the skin color of residents.

"The 211 people were to a not insignificant degree already on record as being right-wing sympathizers and or members of violent sporting groups," said police, adding officers brought the situation under control relatively quickly.

Self-styled German soccer 'hooligans' tend to join right-wing groups on marches, sometimes starting fights.

The police put the right-wingers in a bus which was then attacked by left-wing supporters.

At the LEGIDA protest, people shouted "Merkel must go" and held placards showing the chancellor in a Muslim veil and reading "Merkel, take your Muslims with you and get lost".

With the number of migrants arriving in Europe's biggest economy set to rise further this year, Merkel is under growing pressure to toughen her line on refugees.

An INSA poll in Bild daily put support for Merkel's conservative bloc down 1 point at 35 percent with the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD), which has strongly criticized the Merkel's refugee policy, up 2 points at 11.5 percent.

INSA traditionally puts AfD slightly higher than most other polling institutes.

Anti-refugee right-wingers go on rampage in Leipzig, say police

Thousands demonstrate in Leipzig against right-wing LEGIDA rally

Thousands have gathered in Leipzig to take part in protests for and against the right-wing LEGIDA group. Police have also said that hundreds of hooligans rioted in a leftist stronghold neighborhood, destroying property.

The demonstrators assembled in Leipzig on Monday to call for peaceful coexistence and tolerance in response to a simultaneous anti-refugee rally conducted by the anti-muslim, LEGIDA - the local chapter of xenophobic group PEGIDA.

With candles in hand, the anti-LEGIDA protesters formed a "chain of lights" which stretched for 3.5 kilometers (2.2 miles) around the city center. Up to 2,800 people took part in the protest against the xenophobic group, according to observers.

"We have to take to the streets so long as people continue to make racist arguments," said Leipzig's Mayor Burkhard Jung during the rally. He said people in the German state of Saxony have "a problem with xenophobia" and that they need to catch up in terms of openness and tolerance.

At the same time, he condemned all forms of violence saying violence is "the wrong approach in a democracy."

LEGIDA draws thousands

LEGIDA members also took to the streets on Monday to commemorate the first anniversary of the founding of their chapter, as well as to protest against the recent New Year's Eve sexual assaults in Cologne.

"We are the people" "Resistance!" and "Deport them!" chanted the sign and flag-toting LEGIDA crowd. "Refugees not welcome!" read one sign, showing a silhouette of three men armed with knives pursuing a woman, while another declared "Islam = terror".

Dresden-based PEGIDA (Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the West) called on its members to also take part in the Leipzig protests. Even PEGIDA leader Lutz Bachmann was in attendance. According to observers, between 1,500 and 2,000 LEGIDA members took part in the demonstration.

Around 2,000 police were deployed to prevent clashes between left- and right-wing supporters.

Riots in liberal neighborhood

In another area of the city, riots broke out when around hundreds of soccer "hooligans" started rioting in the district of Connewitz. The neighborhood is considered to be the stronghold of the leftist scene in Leipzig.

Rioters allegedly set of pyrotechnics and threw rocks at display windows.

In a tweet following the riot, police reported: "We have arrested around 250 people from the 'right-wing clientele' after the riots. The situation is under control."

Tensions have been on the rise in Germany following hundreds of sexual assaults which took place on New Year's Eve in Cologne and Hamburg. The culprits were said to have been of North African or Middle Eastern in appearance - setting off a series of right-wing, anti-refugee protests.

Thousands demonstrate in Leipzig against right-wing LEGIDA rally | News | DW.COM | 11.01.2016

Hundreds of far-right protesters rampage through German town, destroying ethnic restaurants and takeaways - hours after Merkel admits European migrant crisis is 'out of control'

Anti-refugee rioters have gone on the rampage in Leipzig, trashing Doner kebab and fast food stalls

250 hooligans part of the local branch of PEGIDA known as LEGIDA set cars on fire and vandalised shops

LEGIDA called for the deportation of migrants and closure of borders following the sex attacks in Cologne

Germany has started sending a growing number of migrants back to Austria since the New Year's Eve sex attacks

Police have made 211 arrests in connection to the mindless vandalism carried out by hooligans in Leipzig

Read more: Far-right protesters rampage through Leipzig in latest anti-migrant demonstrations