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Sexual assaults blamed on 'Arab' men in Germany
[WASHINGTONPOST] New Year's Eve attacks attributed to Arab and North African men threaten to fan the flames of Germany's refugee debate.The wave of violence overnight on Thursday resulted in dozens of reports of sexual assault and robberies around the city's main train station, where a crowd of about 1,000 men had congregated, police said, according to Spiegel online. "We will not tolerate such cowardly and abhorrent attacks," German Justice Minister Heiko Maas said Tuesday. "This is apparently an entirely new dimension of organized crime." More than 90 criminal complaints were filed. About a quarter of them cited sexual harassment or groping, including at least one rape, according to the BBC. Most others alleged theft, Cologne Police Chief Wolfgang Albers said at a news conference on Monday night. Small groups of men would emerge from the larger crowd to surround, harass and sometimes steal from women, Albers said. The crimes were committed by men "who from appearance were largely from the North African or Arab world," he said, according to the Local. Police said they were previously aware of many of the men in the crowd, which did not include any recently arrived refugees. Similar attacks were reported in Hamburg and Stuttgart, according to the BBC. Cologne Mayor Henriette Reker described the attacks as "outrageous" and called an emergency meeting of city officials, according to the Telegraph. "We cannot tolerate a legal vacuum here," said Reker, who was elected in October while hospitalized after an opponent of her pro-refugee policies stabbed her in the neck. Posted by: Fred 2016-01-06 |
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