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Europe
Leipzig leftist club reports sexual attacks by refugees
2016-10-21
[DW] The anti-racist, anti-sexist Conne Island Club in Leipzig caused a stir with a statement about sexual violence by refugees. But it was also keen not to align itself with populist racism, Ben Knight reports from Leipzig.

The Conne Island Club has put itself on the margins in more ways than one. The club is hidden from the road, tucked between a narrow river and a highway on the edge of the city's trendy Connewitz district. It also wears its politics on its walls, both inside and out, which are covered with "Antifascist" graffiti and "Refugees Welcome" stickers.

But on October 7, the club's political position became more subtle: it issued a 1,200-word article on its website entitled "One step forward, two steps back," which trod a careful path between the media's two predominant images of Germany over the past year: the applauding "Welcome Culture" volunteer-crowds at Munich train station and the anti-immigrant PEGIDA marches of Saxony.

The club initially aligned itself with the former (partly as an angry response to the racism of the latter), and offered space for integration projects like skateboarding workshops and German courses, while allowing refugees entry for 50 euro-cents ($0.55).

But, according to Conne Island's statement, "sexist advances and physical attacks have occurred more frequently ... in Conne Island and other clubs - with the consequence that female guests have stayed away."

This was a real problem for a place that had, it said, spent the 25 years of its existence fighting for certain principles, which included zero tolerance for "sexist attacks ... or anti-Semitic, racist, or any other type of discriminatory behavior."

Posted by:Fred

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