Thread: Cologne Mayor Blames Victims of Sex Attacks Instead of Muslim Migrants

Victim blaming at its finest.

As TruthRevolt previously reported, hundreds of women were assaulted, robbed, molested, and raped by 1,000 Muslim migrants in several German cities during New Year's Eve celebrations. In the wake of this sexual violence, Cologne Mayor Henriette Reker held an emergency meeting to come up with a "code of conduct" in hopes to prevent future criminal activity. Unbelievably, the helpful hints aren't aimed at the migrant perpetrators but the female victims.

From UK's Independent:

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.

In anticipation of large carnivals in the city centre in February, Mayor Reker promised an increased police presence. She warned young women about potential dangers of drunken events.

If that isn't outrageous enough, Reker is going out of her way to insure the "asylum seekers" -- described by police as North African and Arab -- are clued into what is expected behavior from them.

“We need to prevent confusion about what constitutes happy behaviour and what is utterly separate from openness, especially in sexual behaviour," she said.

Reker defended further claiming that not every attacker was a newly-arrived refugee and that some of them were known by the police.

The mayor has welcomed Muslim refugees with open arms and because of that, was a victim herself when she was stabbed in the neck in October by a man upset at her open-door policy.

Yet, her message to victims remains the same:

The women and young girls have to be more protected in the future so these things don’t happen again.

Cologne Mayor Blames Victims of Sex Attacks Instead of Muslim Migrants | Truth Revolt

Cologne sex attacks: Protest against gang assaults on women

Hundreds of people have protested in the German city of Cologne over sexual assaults and thefts carried out by groups of men on New Year's Eve.

Some held up signs demanding action from Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Mrs Merkel has expressed outrage over the "disgusting attacks" and said everything must be done to find those responsible.

Witnesses and police said that the men involved were of Arab or North African appearance.

Political leaders have warned Germans not to link the violence to the influx of more than one million refugees and migrants in the past year.

"It's completely improper... to link a group that appeared to come from North Africa with the refugees," Cologne Mayor Henriette Reker said, following talks with police.

Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere agreed there should not be any general suspicion towards refugees at least "at this stage of the investigation".

"But if North Africans were the perpetrators, for which there is some indication, there should not be a taboo and people should not gloss over it."

The scale of the attacks, involving groups of drunk and aggressive young men, has shocked the country.

There is an intense debate in Germany about refugees and migrants who arrived in record numbers last year, many of them fleeing the conflict in Syria.

'New dimension'

Women have made at least 90 criminal complaints to police about harassment by gangs at Cologne's main railway station on Thursday night.

At least one woman in Cologne was reportedly raped and many were groped, including a volunteer policewoman.

Women were also targeted in Hamburg and Stuttgart in similar attacks, but on a smaller scale.

Up to 300 people, mostly women, demonstrated against the violence near the scene of the attacks on Tuesday evening.

Some held placards reading: "Mrs Merkel! Where are you? What do you say? This alarms us!"

Police were pictured stopping and questioning men near Cologne's central station on Tuesday.

However, the city's police chief, Wolfgang Albers, said no arrests had yet been made over the New Year's Eve attacks.

"We don't currently have any suspects, so we don't know who the perpetrators were," he said.

"All we know is that the police at the scene perceived that it was mostly young men aged 18 to 35 from the Arab or North African region."

He called it "a completely new dimension of crime" and rejected criticism of his force's handling on the night.

Justice Minister Heiko Maas warned against using the attacks to bolster anti-refugee sentiment.

"In criminal law what's important is proving a crime, and everyone is equal before the law," he said.

"It doesn't matter where someone comes from, it matters what they did and that we can prove it."

Mrs Merkel called Ms Reker on Tuesday to discuss the attacks.

She said everything must be done "to find the perpetrators as quickly and comprehensively as possible and punish them, regardless of their origin or background".

The mayor promised preventive measures ahead of Cologne's carnival in February, when hundreds of thousands of revellers are expected on the streets.

One man described how his partner and 15-year-old daughter were surrounded by a 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."

Most of the crimes reported to police were robberies.

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."

Cologne sex attacks: Protest against gang assaults on women - BBC News

Refugee scandal: How Germany?s politicians and police betrayed German women |

Huge influx of migrant men will lead to more sex attacks like those in Cologne, says analyst, as it's revealed Austrian police have ALSO covered up identical gang assaults

Some 106 women reported being assaulted in Cologne on New Year's Eve

Professor warns of dangers of influx of young male migrants into Europe

Dr Valerie Hudson claims sex crimes worsen in 'masculinised' societies

Police report describes women forced to run a 'gauntlet' past assailants

Austrian police have now admitted suffering a similar sex gang problem

Some of the 16 suspects are recent arrivals to Europe, it has been reported

The massive influx into Europe of young, unaccompanied men will lead to a gender imbalance and more sex attacks like those seen in Cologne, a professor has warned.

Crimes such as sexual assaults and rape become more common in 'masculinised' societies, while women's ability to travel without fear worsens, Dr Valerie Hudson claims.

Her warning comes as police in Germany reveal the 'organised Arab or North African' sex gangs which terrorised more than 100 women in Cologne blocked officers from helping distressed victims.

The chilling police report describes women being forced to run through a 'gauntlet' of drunken men while officers themselves were mobbed by victims claiming they had been sexually assaulted.

But the problem is now believed to be far more widespread than initially thought.

Today it emerged identical sex gangs are operating in neighbouring Austria, while more than 150 woman across five German cities have reported attacks.

And in Switzerland, six women reported identical crimes in Zurich on New Year's Eve, while Finnish police intercepted information suggesting similar attacks were planned

Read more: Influx of migrant men will lead to more sex attacks like in Cologne, says analyst

Police appear in Cologne on New Year'Eve firework night

Migrant rape fears spread across Europe: Women told not to go out at night alone after assaults carried out in Sweden, Finland, Germany, Austria and Switzerland amid warnings gangs are co-ordinating attacks

Sweden has issued warnings to women to be wary of potential attacks

15 young women have reported being groped by men in Kalmar, Sweden

Austrian police have come under fire after claims attacks were covered-up

Finnish police say they have information that the attacks are co-ordinated

Vienna's police chief advises women not to go out on the streets alone

Cologne police chief Wolfgang Albers relieved of his duties over handling of New Year's Eve sex attacks

Security authorities are growing increasingly concerned by the rising number of sex attacks by gangs of migrants which appear to be spreading across Europe.

Finland and Sweden today became the latest European countries to issue warnings to women to be wary of the threat of sex attacks following fresh reports of sexual assaults in the last week, while the Viennese police chief adviced women not to go outside alone in Vienna.

The warnings come as reports emerged that Austrian and German police tried to cover-up the issue over fears of reprisal attacks on asylum seekers and damage to the countries' tourist trade.

Dozens of arrests have been made today in connection with the wave of recent sex attacks across Europe.

Read more: Migrant rape fears across Europe as women are told not to go out at night alone

How do you like your "refugees" now EU? You should not be surprised, it has been going on before this latest onslaught of freeloaders you let into your countries. If it were abuse to men, it would have been stopped long tine ago.

Germany: More women come forward alleging sexually assaults, robberies in Cologne at New Year

COLOGNE, Germany — More women came forward Wednesday alleging they were sexually assaulted and robbed during New Year's Eve celebrations in the German city of Cologne, as police faced mounting criticism for their handling of the incident.

At least 106 criminal complaints have been filed since last week, Cologne police spokesman Christoph Gilles said. The figure has increased from 90 since Tuesday.

"At least three quarters have a sexual component. In two cases we are investigating crimes that amount to rape," Gilles told The Associated Press.

About 1,000 men described by police as being of "Arab or North African origin" gathered around Cologne's main station, next to the city's famous cathedral, on the night from Thursday to Friday. Smaller groups then surrounded individual women, harassed them and stole their belongings.

Police initially failed to mention the assaults in report the following morning, describing the festivities as "largely peaceful."

Details of the attacks only emerged over the weekend and calls have grown for a comprehensive review of police actions on the night, after some witnesses claimed that officers didn't stop the attackers.

Gilles said police were well prepared on the night, but "surprised" by the scale and aggression of the attacks.

Mayor Henriette Reker said she expected police to analyze what went wrong and "draw consequences from that."

She didn't elaborate on what that would entail. Police chief Wolfgang Albers has shrugged off questions about his own future, saying that he will stay in his post, though he acknowledged that the initial failure to mention the assaults was a mistake.

Ralf Jaeger, North Rhine-Westphalia state's interior minister, said he expected a detailed report from Cologne police this week on who knew what when.

"The Cologne police force must clear up meticulously what happened where and when, what police could know and evaluate when and where, and what measures have to be taken."

Gilles, the police spokesman, said the city has 10 officers working on the attacks and four men have been detained.

Among the angles police are investigating is whether there are any links to similar crimes committed over the past two years in the nearby city of Duesseldorf, where men have groped women to distract them before stealing their belongings. The two cities are 40 kilometres (25 miles) apart.

Markus Niesczeri, a spokesman for Duesseldorf police, said that since the start of 2014, officers there have identified more than 2,000 suspects of North African origin in connection with organized thefts, though he didn't say how many. He declined to say whether there have been any arrests in those cases.

"At the moment we can't make a serious connection because we don't have the perpetrators from New Year's Eve," Gilles said. "It's not excluded that there are overlaps, but that's still the subject of investigation."
Police are encouraging more women to come forward.

"Most of the victims were from outside Cologne who filed criminal complaints in their home towns or with federal police," Gilles said, adding that they included women of all ages and nationalities.

In addition to widespread shock over the scale and nature of the attacks, the incident has also fueled public debate about Germany's ability to integrate large numbers of migrants.

Germany registered nearly 1.1 million people as asylum seekers last year, according to Interior Ministry figures released Wednesday, and some politicians who have called for limits on migration have seized on the incident in Cologne to bolster their position.

Germany's top security official stressed that those involved must be punished regardless of where they come from. Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said that "you cannot draw a general suspicion against refugees from the indications that they were perhaps people who looked North African."

He added that "a bit of patience is necessary to clear up as completely as possible the structure of the perpetrators and the organizational structures there might have been," including whether there was any link to similar, smaller-scale incidents on New Year's Eve in Hamburg.

De Maiziere noted that, under German law, criminal behaviour has a direct effect on a person's asylum proceedings if he or she is sentenced to at least three years in prison. He said that "we will have to talk about whether that needs to be changed."

In any case, "anyone who commits serious crimes, whatever status he is in, must reckon with being deported from Germany," de Maiziere said.

Antonia Rabente, a 26-year-old student in Cologne, said the mood in the city was divided.

"On the one hand there's a feeling that what happened is wrong and many people concerned about this. But where people are split is in how to respond," she said. "I think it's important to keep the focus on the women who were affected. They need to be the focus of attention now and not misused for attacks on the right to asylum."

About 100 people protested Wednesday against a far-right rally near the train station that numbered less than 10 people.

Watching from nearby, Gudrun Sauer, a retired civil servant, said she was disappointed by the events and called for a change in the law to allow foreigners found guilty of serious crimes to be deported regardless of whether they face possible persecution in their home country.

But she disagreed with those who blamed the latest wave of refugees for the assaults.

"The people who come here and went through such hardship, they're hoping for a better future here," said Sauer. "I don't think they'd risk doing something like that. You shouldn't throw everything in one pot."

Cologne's mayor, meanwhile, was mocked on social media for saying, when asked Tuesday about what women can do to protect themselves better: "There is always the possibility of keeping a certain distance, more than an arm's length" from strangers.

Some of those who criticized her felt that Reker was blaming women for the attacks and lambasted the idea that women could have simply protected themselves by keeping men at arm's length.

Reker said Wednesday that she regretted any misunderstanding, but had merely been pointing to existing prevention and counselling programs in response to a journalist's question.

"The priority is for concrete security to be provided on our streets and squares," she said in a statement.

Red Deer Advocate - Germany: More women come forward alleging sexually assaults, robberies in Cologne at New Year

Germans divided on who to blame for New Year's Eve sex assaults

COLOGNE, Germany -- Amid widespread shock over a string of sexual assaults in this cosmopolitan German city on New Year's Eve, the response was divided Wednesday: blame the police or chide the victims, deport criminal foreigners or prevent migrants from entering the country in the first place.

The reaction in Cologne reflects a broader debate as Germany struggles to reconcile law and order with its new-found role as a haven for those seeking a better life.

Police descriptions of the perpetrators as of "Arab or North African origin" were seized on by those calling for an end to Chancellor Angela Merkel's open-door policy toward people fleeing violence and persecution -- even as authorities warned they don't know if any of the culprits are refugees.

Adding to the controversy were remarks by Cologne's mayor, Henriette Reker, suggesting that women can protect themselves from strange men on the streets by keeping them "more than an arm's length" away -- words that were widely ridiculed on social media Wednesday for putting the onus on the victims.

At least 106 women have come forward to file criminal complaints of sexual assault and robbery during the New Year's Eve festivities, authorities said, including two accounts of rape.

The attacks were seized on by opponents of Germany's welcoming stance toward those fleeing conflict.

"This is where Merkel's irresponsible immigration policy will lead us," declared Thorsten Craemer of the far-right fringe party ProNRW, which staged a small rally in front of Cologne's main train station, the site of the attacks. "There will be battles for resources, confrontations far worse than what we've experienced on New Year's Eve."

His fellow activists -- fewer than 10 in total -- were far outnumbered by counter-demonstrators shouting them down with slogans such as "East or West, down with the Nazi plague."

Among the counter-protesters was Antonia Rabente, a 26-year-old student and union activist who expressed anguish at the assaults.

"On the one hand there's a feeling that what happened is wrong and many people are concerned about this. But where people are split is in how to respond," she said. "I think it's important to keep the focus on the women who were affected. They (mustn't be) misused for attacks on the right to asylum."

Germany was one of the few European countries to welcome the influx of refugees last year. Many Germans cheered as weary Syrians, Afghans and Iraqis stepped off trains in Munich, Frankfurt and Hamburg last summer and tens of thousands have volunteered to help the new arrivals.

That euphoria has given way to the realization that integrating the nearly 1.1 million people who came to Germany last year will be a long and difficult task, even as many Germans have been heartened by Merkel's mantra, "We can do this."
Gudrun Sauer, a retired civil servant, said it would be wrong to blame the latest wave of refugees for the assaults. "The people who come here and went through such hardship, they're hoping for a better future," she said. "I don't think they'd risk doing something like that."

But like her husband Walter, she questioned whether German law is too lax on criminal foreigners and said the police should have intervened sooner to prevent the New Year's Eve assaults.

Police initially failed to mention the assaults in their report the following morning, describing the festivities as "largely peaceful."

Cologne Police Chief Wolfgang Albers acknowledged the mistake, but dismissed widespread criticism that officers were overwhelmed and reacted too slowly in protecting the women.

"When the situation became tense in front of the train station -- there were a thousand men who were completely out of control -- the police cleared the square," he told public broadcaster ARD. "It was a difficult operation (and) the police did an exemplary job."

Witnesses told a different story. German media quoted dozens of women who said they were followed by groups of men who groped them, tried to pull off their clothes and stole valuables.

On Wednesday, police said the number of women alleging they were sexually assaulted or robbed had risen to 106.

At least three-quarters of the criminal complaints filed included an alleged sexual assault, Cologne police spokesman Christoph Gilles told The Associated Press, adding that "in two cases we are investigating crimes that amount to rape."
He said police had arrested four suspects.

Express, a tabloid newspaper based in Cologne, suggested Albers should resign. "The reputation of the Cologne police has taken a nationwide hit," the paper said in editions hitting newsstands Thursday.

Among the angles police are investigating is whether there are any links to similar crimes committed over the past two years by men suspected to be of North African origin in the nearby city of Duesseldorf, some 25 miles (40 kilometres) away.
Gilles, the police spokesman, urged more victims to come forward, saying they would be treated "very sensitively."

Concern over authorities' treatment of women were further inflamed by Cologne Mayor Reker's remarks Tuesday when asked what women can do to protect themselves.

"There is always the possibility of keeping a certain distance, more than an arm's length" from strangers, she said.

Critics lashed out on social media at Reker -- who was sworn into the job less than a month ago -- saying the remarks amounted to blaming women for the attacks and were ludicrous considering the crowded streets on New Year's Eve.

Reker said Wednesday that she regretted any misunderstanding, but had merely been pointing to existing prevention and counselling programs in response to a journalist's question.

Pointing to the city's alcohol-soaked Carnival celebrations next month, Reker was also quoted as saying that misunderstandings with men could be avoided if women did not "hug everyone who smiles at them."

German police investigate whether New Year's Eve assaults are linked to a criminal network

Police Fire Water Cannons and Pepper Spray at Anti-“Rapefugees” Rally But Not Mass Migrant Sex Mobs on NYE

Where was this strong police presence on New Years Eve?

There were mass riots and coordinated sex attacks that spanned all of Europe.. Austria, Finland, France, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland. Why weren’t the tactics used against rape and robbery rally employed against the Muslim Migrant hordes?

Photo above: Police use pepper spray against supporters of anti-immigration right-wing movement PEGIDA (Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West) during a demonstration march, in reaction to mass assaults on women on New Year’s Eve, in Cologne, Germany, January 9, 2016.

“German police fire water cannons at PEGIDA protesters in Cologne,” By RT, 9 Jan, 2016:

German police have used water cannons to disperse PEGIDA demonstrators in Cologne. The anti-immigration movement were rallying against a rash of assaults on women, blamed on migrants in the city on New Year’s Eve.

Over a thousand supporters of the far-right movement took part in the protest in the center of the western German city on Saturday. They chanted “expulsion,” while waving German flags and other banners inscribed with slogans such as “Rapefugees not welcome.”

“Merkel must go” was another popular rallying cry with the demonstrators. The far-right supporters are infuriated with German Chancellor Angela Merkel for her soft stance on refugees, and statements that the country could accept over a million asylum seekers.

Scuffles between the police and PEGIDA supporters started after the demonstrators hurled firecrackers and beer bottles at law enforcers. When they continued to throw projectiles, police deployed two water cannons and used pepper spray to disperse the group.

Supporters of the anti-immigration movement were then herded towards an area near the city’s station.

The police in Cologne could also be seen making a number of arrests of those supporting the PEGIDA movement. A police spokeswoman said the PEGIDA protest had attracted some 1,700 people, half of whom she described as coming from the “hooligan scene,” Reuters reported.

Police Fire Water Cannons and Pepper Spray at Anti-?Rapefugees? Rally But Not Mass Migrant Sex Mobs on NYE | Pamela Geller