Sex Attacks by Migrants in Cologne: ‘Gangrape Game’ to Blame?
Mob mentality, not religion or a “gangrape game” responsible for mass sexual assaults in Germany, Sweden and Austria.
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On February 11, 2011 CBS correspondent Lara Logan was reporting from a victorious Tahrir Square after Hosni Mubarak’s fall. The experienced war correspondent was accompanied by a five-member crew that included a security detail. After an hour of reporting, her camera battery died and the lights went off.
That’s when all hell broke lose.
She was pulled in by a savage crowd that violently beat her, ripped her clothes apart and digitally raped her.
“Before I know what’s happening,” she recounted, “I feel hands grabbing my breasts, grabbing my crotch, grabbing me from behind. And it’s not one person and then it stops. It’s one person and another person and another person...raping me with their hands from the front and from the back.”
Her ordeal lasted 25 minutes before she was rescued by military personnel.
Lara was among several foreign journalists who were physically and sexually assaulted by mobs while reporting from Tahrir Square in 2011.
It introduced us, and the Western world, to a form of sexual assault perpetrated in groups by men during mass gatherings, protests or festivals.
Why is Europe Talking About it Now?
It took four days for the German media to make sense of what had happened in the city of Cologne on New Year’s eve. But it was tough for the city police chief Wolfgang Albers, who has since been sacked, to downplay 120 reports of sexual assault by a ‘coordinated group’ of more than 1,000 men who appeared to be of ‘Arab and North African’ descent.
According to a widely accepted and corroborated narrative, shortly after midnight, after the fireworks had died down, a large group of men split up into smaller groups. What ensued was mayhem.
The Daily Mail quotes police notes that leave little room for interpretation:
“12.30am Group of 20 men surround young woman and put their hands down her pants.”
“Several women injured. All suffered attempts to introduce fingers in vaginas, tights. All were touched on the chest and buttocks. Finger was introduced inside a victim.”
“Two female victims were encircled by crowd and groped. Handbag fell. From the bag was stolen mobile phone, cash, jewellery.”
“We were fondled, I was groped between my legs. My friends were also fondled. My boyfriend tried to pull me away. There was quite a big group of people, maybe thirty or forty.”
Similar accounts by other women reveal how “sexually frustrated men tried to put their hands down their tights and knickers and tried to put their fingers in their vaginas.”
A woman is left with permanent scars on her back and shoulder after firecrackers were thrown into her hoodie.
One woman told the police that she was surrounded by 20 men of North African appearance before they attacked her intimate parts.
Victims of Gangrape Game?
There is no evidence to prove that the women attacked in Cologne or elsewhere in Germany and in Europe were victims of the ‘gangrape game’. But the widely accepted narrative is that shortly after midnight, the crowd broke off into smaller groups and targeted women.
This has also been corroborated by the German Justice Minister who in a recent interview said that in his opinion, the attacks were not opportunistic, but a premeditated and organised assault on women.
But references to Tahrrush Jama’i have formed part of the propaganda of Germany’s xenophobic right – Pegida (Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the Occident) and the new Alternative for Germany (AfD) party have both been at the forefront of protests against German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her liberal refugee policy.
Who’s Responsible?
So far, 31 suspects have been charged. Of them, nine are Algerian, eight from Morocco, five from Iran, four from Syria. Two are German citizens and one each from Iraq, Serbia and the United States.
An 80-member investigation team is combing through 350 hours of footage to identify other suspects.
Not Just Cologne....
Similar complaints were registered in Hamburg, Stuttgart, Frankfurt and Düsseldorf.
In Sweden, police in the South-Western city of Kalmar are probing at least eight complaints of sexual harassment targeting fifteen young women aged 16-20.
Three complaints of sexual harassment were registered in the Finnish capital of Helsinki.
Three separate incidents in the Austrian city of Salzburg, were sexually assaulted on New Year’s eve. Among them was a 22-year old who was surrounded, groped and robbed. Two men originally from Afghanistan and a Syrian man have been detained.
The Aftermath
Angela Merkel’s open-door policy for the 1.1 million asylum seekers has come under fire. Over the last week, thousands have protested against Germany’s relatively liberal stance on refugees from war-hit Middle East. Counter-protests defending the refugees have also fuelled the debate.
But its clear which way the wind is blowing. Germany’s Justice Ministry has announced that it is drafting a law that will make it easier for the state to deport migrants found guilty of violent crimes. As per the current law, only those migrants awarded a three-year sentence can be deported. The sexual assaults reported on New Year’s eve fall short of rape and do not attract a three-year sentence.
The Backlash
The xenophobic right-wing organisation in Germany have called on the German Chancellor to resign. In Cologne, 1,700 anti-migrant protesters clashed with 1,300 pro-migrant demonstrators until the police intervened. A group of 20 is reported to have roamed the streets, attacking foreigners and injuring two Pakistanis and a Syrian.
Muslims in Germany and innocent refugees who fled war to eke out a new life in Europe are now living in fear of what this circle of hate will bring next.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)