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Cologne Sexual Assaults – The Toll rises

Cologne Sexual Assaults – The Toll rises

Merkel struggles to address the real problem

Reading the accounts from Cologne about the throngs of Arab men sexually assaulting women in Cologne on New Year’s Eve, my first thought went to Lara Logan who suffered a similar fate in Egypt during the “Arab Spring.” Lara is continuing to suffer from the unspeakable abuse she endured and was again hospitalized early in 2015.  My second thought went to the Second Amendment.

As the evil that was perpetrated on over a hundred women (in Cologne alone) sinks in, the governments in Germany and throughout the western world—reports of similar attacks in Finland are emerging—are feeling more pressure than ever to address the refugee crisis and their own policies.

Der Spiegel has published a lengthy and thoughtful article entitled “Chaos and Violence: How New Year’s Eve in Cologne Changed Germany.”

For some, the events finally bring to light what they have always been saying: that too many foreigners in the country bring too many problems along with them. For the others, that which happened is what they have been afraid of from the very beginning: that ugly images of ugly behavior by migrants would endanger what has been a generally positive mood in Germany with respect to the refugees.

As inexact and unclear as the facts from Cologne may be, they carry a clear message: Difficult days are ahead. And they beg a couple of clear questions: Is Germany really sure that it can handle the influx of refugees? And: Does Germany really have the courage and the desire to become the country in Europe with the greatest number of immigrants?

These are good questions . . . questions that should have been asked and answered honestly beforehand.  As they were not, Germany, along with the rest of Europe, must now deal with their lack of foresight, planning, and leadership.  Extending compassion is great, but when it endangers and harms your own citizens, a line must be drawn because the lack of compassion towards the victims of these mass sexual assaults if far more stunning (and shameful) than a more balanced and manageable admittance of refugees would have been.

The German media, apparently, was not only slow to pick up on the Cologne story but also hasn’t been reporting incidents of sexual abuse that have been happening throughout Germany for over a year.

Der Spiegel continues:

On Tuesday, the station issued a public apology for the lack of coverage. “It was a lapse in judgement that the 7 p.m. evening news show didn’t at least mention the incident,” Theveßen wrote on Facebook. Such an open admission of error by a senior manager at a public station in Germany is rare, but Theveßen’s act of repentance did little to calm the doubters.

. . . . More than 2,000 users have thus far commented on Theveßens post, with most of the missives of a horrifying nature — a collection of conspiracy theories characteristic of the far-right. One user named Johannes Normann, formerly a regional leader for AfD, wrote: “Does ‘our’ news have to be first cleared by our trans-Atlantic ‘friends’? After all, they ‘ordered’ the ‘Islamic mass-immigration.'”

Another user, Julien F. Weikinnes, wrote: “What would have happened if 100 Pegida followers had raped 300 Muslims? There would probably have been a breaking news alert and a live story from the Cologne train station.”

. . . .  Ercan Yasaroglu, a social worker from Berlin, was appalled when he heard about the attacks in Cologne. He was furious and dismayed, but he wasn’t surprised. “What happened in Cologne has been happening here in Berlin for a year, but on a smaller scale,” he says.

The German media, much like our own, is suspected by many Germans to be actively suppressing the truth about criminal acts by Muslim refugees.

All established media have been confronted with the same phenomenon. In Germany, there is a stable minority that is convinced that the country’s broadcasters, newspapers and magazines are controlled by dark powers and have agreed to suppress bad news about foreigners so as not to endanger the political project of welcoming refugees.

It sounds like the role of the media in Germany is rather similar to our own in that it props up failed “progressive” policy and ignores anything that calls their worldview into question.  If they don’t print it, it never happened.  Or something.

The Daily Mail reports along similar lines:

Another deeply worrying aspect of the New Year horror in Cologne also emerged this week.

Many Germans, including some of the victims themselves, have accused authorities of a conspiracy of silence over the assaults to stop criticism of the mass immigration policy pursued by Mrs Merkel and her politically-correct supporters. The mainstream media in Germany has, until recently, toed the Government line; a top public broadcaster, ZDF, recently refused to run a segment about a rape case on its prime-time ‘crime-watch’ show because the ‘dark-skinned’ suspect was a migrant.

The programme’s editor defended her decision, saying: ‘We don’t want to inflame the situation and spread a bad mood. The migrants don’t deserve it.’

Watch the following BBC report:

Many Germans are now regretting their support for Angela Merkel’s open-door refugee policy.

The attacks have sounded the alarm bell in Germany over the consequences of mass migration. A country dogged by guilt over its Nazi past, it has enjoyed its recent role as saviour of Europe, welcoming in foreigners from the war-divided Middle East and Africa’s poverty hotspots.

When the migrants began arriving in their thousands each day last summer, there were welcoming parties across the country. ‘We love refugees!’ proclaimed banners outside reception centres.

Yet that warm hospitality is now being replaced by fear, as a society renowned for its good order begins to buckle under the strain — and to worry if it has made a mistake.

It was, quite clearly, a mistake.  The question now is: what are the governments of Germany and Europe going to do to fix it.   The answer, so far, appears to be “more of the same.”

All this is raising questions from ordinary Germans, and this week provoked confessions from their political masters. Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere admitted the New Year crimes against women by such large numbers of men from a migrant background were a ‘new departure’ for the country.

Mrs Merkel said: ‘Everything must be done to identify the guilty parties without regard to their background or origins. We must send clear signals to those who are not prepared to abide by our laws. Questions arise over whether some groups are subscribing to misogyny.’

Her words were clearly carefully chosen to avoid specifically linking migrants with these attacks against women. But the truth is the mass assaults have clear echoes of the sex crimes in Cairo’s Tahrir Square in Egypt in 2011, during celebrations welcoming the so-called Arab Spring, when groups of men violently harassed women.

Watch:

The Daily Mail also reveals another troubling trend that we’ve seen in both the UK and in France:  the police are complicit in the criminal acts of immigrants if by nothing more than their silence and looking the other way.

The Cologne police force has also been accused of deliberately hushing up the New Year scandal. It issued an official press release the following day describing the celebrations as ‘exuberant, but mostly peaceful’. The release has since been retracted, and last night it emerged that police chief Wolfgang Albers is to resign.

Broadcaster ZDF had to apologise for a ‘cover up’ after it failed to report the Cologne story for three days, even though it knew about it.

Meanwhile, Merkel has been sounding an awful lot like Obama on the topic, insisting that there is not “evidence” that Muslim refugees were involved in the attacks.  This turned out not only to be false but that she knew full well that it was false.

And until Thursday, a week after the attacks, there had been silence from Mrs Merkel’s ministers about the backgrounds of the perpetrators. Initially, they insisted there was no evidence that new migrants were involved in the violence.

A leaked police report which emerged 48 hours ago showed this was far from the truth. It revealed that one of the Cologne attackers said: ‘I am Syrian. You have to treat me kindly: Mrs Merkel invited me.’

The report by a senior officer added: ‘When we arrived [at the square] our vehicles were pelted with firecrackers. On the cathedral steps were a thousand people, mainly of immigrant background, who were indiscriminately throwing fireworks and bottles into the crowd.

‘Women literally had to run the gauntlet through the mass of drunk men in a way you can’t describe ….many came to officers shocked and crying to report sex assaults. We were unable to respond to all the offences. There were just too many.’

Another unnamed officer told a Cologne newspaper that 14 of those questioned on the night were from Syria and one from Afghanistan.

‘That’s the truth, though it hurts to say it,’ he added. ‘They had definitely only been in Germany for a few days or weeks.’

The BBC reports that Merkel is planning to tighten the deportation policy on “immigrants” who commit crimes and those who are on probation.

Mrs Merkel, speaking after a meeting of her Christian Democrat party leadership in Mainz, proposed tightening the law on denying the right of asylum for those who have committed crimes.

Under the new plans, those on probation could be deported too.

“When crimes are committed, and people place themselves outside the law… there must be consequences,” she told reporters after the meeting.

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

Addressing Merkel’s growing political challenges, the BBC writes:

Angela Merkel’s challenge is to reassure an increasingly pessimistic public that she has a long-term plan. The chancellor showed compassion when she welcomed more than a million refugees and migrants into Germany in 2015. Now she is under pressure to make clear there are limits to German tolerance.

Anti-immigration campaigners have seized on the Cologne incident as an example of what they see as the failure of the country’s asylum policy. The prominence of the far-right Pegida movement was fading. It is now using the attacks as a propaganda tool.

On the other side of what is a widening chasm, established Islamic groups here have expressed fears that the actions of a few may jeopardise the future of many.

With tension rising and tolerance waning, Germany’s doors remain open, but many here are increasingly asking: For how long and at what cost?

Merkel may have been Time‘s “Person of the Year” for 2015 for—in no small part—her reckless and incompetent policies regarding refugees, but it looks like 2016 will be more than a bit challenging for her political life and her disastrous policies.

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Comments

Merkel’s “bimbo eruptions.”

It is a mistake for the party in power to believe its own propaganda.

In a democracy with regular elections, the opposition are not “racists” or “terrorists” simply because they raise objections about legislation or a policy. Instead, they are people who object to some aspect of the policy or legislation as a service to their constituents.

Generally, those objections tend to be legitimate concerns that, if they are accommodated, will produce a better result for the country as a whole.

Hubris in national policy leads to revolting developments.

I am annoyed at the feigned surprise by those who are writing these stories, as if this sort of behavior is a complete surprise. Sweden has been the rape capital of the Western world for several years now. Muslim men have no respect for women; why are we surprised by their treatment of dhimmi women?

For a society that professes a belief it multi-culturalism, I find it odd the lengths we go to deny the powerful differences between them.

nordic_prince | January 9, 2016 at 6:12 pm

Yet more evidence of the incredible naivete of leftists. It can’t possibly be Muslims that are raping western (and thus primarily white) women.

On second thought, they probably consider that a feature, and not a bug ~

So where were the German men during all this?

    Barry in reply to snopercod. | January 9, 2016 at 7:37 pm

    Genetically German men all dies in the two world wars or left the country. What’s left (yes, a few exceptions) are the neutered ones.

    rabidfox in reply to snopercod. | January 10, 2016 at 12:38 am

    I’ve read reports that the men who tried to stop the rapes were overwhelmed and, when down, were kicked in the head. The local cops retreated saying that they weren’t ready for a war.

      Radegunda in reply to rabidfox. | January 10, 2016 at 12:03 pm

      I’ve read these reports too. When a thousand or so men are acting in what looks like an organized pattern of aggression, their effectiveness in causing mayhem is not proof that German men were all just standing by passively watching women be assaulted.

Paul In Sweden | January 9, 2016 at 7:35 pm

Water cannon for those that protest RapeFugees but green light and no water cannon for the RapeFugees when they gather in the hundreds to sexually assault women and children. What messages are the leftist governments of the EU telling those of us that are fed up with their destructive policies?

http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/01/09/2736678/

Subotai Bahadur | January 9, 2016 at 8:03 pm

There are suspicions of, if not a conspiracy, a commonality of intent and purpose between the State, the Media, and the police. And those suspicions are not unreasonable. What would be unreasonable is to assume that it was all a pure accident that every one of the news outlets, and law enforcement agencies publicly made the same mistake AFTER they knew the facts. Oopsie.

Kind of like in this country.

Combine that with the massive use of police force against today’s peaceful demonstration by PEGIDA protesting the Muslim attacks, involving hundreds of cops in riot gear, water cannon, and pepper gas; it looks like the government intends to silence anyone who disagrees with the invasion.

If, as it appears, the German government hopes to not change any policies and just ride this out; when the next attacks on German women happen during Fasching next month, force may be resisted with force.

Something to watch from a distance, so any available lessons can be learned for when it comes here.

    Merkel’s statement after the NYE event supports your prediction. She declared it be to something like a natural law that “refugees” are more criminally inclined than native Germans, but that’s no reason not to welcome them with open arms!

    In Merkel’s fairy tale, history demonstrates that immigration always makes the host country better. Always.

    Do all those menacing Muslim-dominated suburbs in France and elsewhere illustrate what she means by “better”? Likewise the soaring rates of rape and robbery in Sweden and Norway? Or the sex-grooming gangs in Britain? Or the takeover of city streets for mass “prayer” — actually, a demonstration of power? Or the occasional dramatic terror attack or decapitation?

    Oh, don’t be so hard of heart! Frau Merkel assures her citizens that she will handle things correctly!

The Germans don’t realize that there is no significant difference between Islam and Nazism. The both seek to destroy existing society so the can replace it with their utopia. A utopia where they rule a one party state and thru it control every aspect of society. The words they mouth to justify this evil are just propaganda designed to lull the feeble brained into acceptance of their evil.

This is why Tyrant Obama the Liar wants to impose gun control. It will enable his son’s recreation.

That lady mayor said people should not accept any foregone conclusions and for sure they should not let this interfere with celebrating carnival. Remember that guy in the movie “Jaws” was he a mayor too?

The groping jihad should leave no doubt that the cultural problem is much more pervasive than some radicals and terrorists hiding among a mass of “moderate” Muslims.

Larry Kudlow reiterated his call for halting all immigration until we can screen out terrorists, but his references to radicals and terrorists seemed to lack conviction this time — as if he realizes that the downside of importing Islamic culture is much bigger. It’s been obvious for a long time to people paying attention to what Islam is doing to Europe, but the sheer scale of the NYE attacks may be opening a few more eyes.

Merkel’s toast. The unknown, at this point, is who replaces her. Behind the scenes there are “games going on” called “survival.” Plus, it’s easy for the Germans to recognize their enemies.

How did Merkel bring this in? Stupid woman thought it would all be about jobs.

You want an easy answer? It’s about males who rape. Males who are not of German stock. (And, if you look around Europe you’ll see 10-foot-high fences going up.

Is Greece a “landing destination?” Yeah. But the Greeks have no jobs! They aren’t attracting Europeans, either.

You can pick how this will end. (I’ve already picked Merkel’s career as being flushed down the loo.)

Sammy Finkelman | January 11, 2016 at 7:22 pm

Reading the accounts from Cologne about the throngs of Arab men sexually assaulting women in Cologne on New Year’s Eve, my first thought went to Lara Logan who suffered a similar fate in Egypt during the “Arab Spring.”

Egypt is one of those places that has changed over the last few decades. Jordan may be another place there is this kind of problem. It would be good to try to trace the beginning of this.

It probably is related to Islamicism, because one of the things it endorses is women covering up their skins and even face. This is so even though Islamists cannot possibly come up with any theological or ideological justification for attacks like these, and therefore have to be against this kind of thing and deeclare it to be a sin. But that’s not really a problem for them, because they’re really a criminal group.

They cheat in their internal elections, too.

Sammy Finkelman | January 11, 2016 at 7:38 pm

Something very wrong is going on here.

There seems to be the following assumptions or lies:

1) That this was done by recent migrants – those who arrived in 2015.

The suppression of the facts makes it possible to argue that that is the case, when the ethnic identity of the attackers alone (hald of them Morrocans and Algerians) seems to establish they’ve been in Germany, and in Cologne, for awhile.

2) That all you need to do is let a few migrants loose and they’ll assault women. But there were no recent migrants there and nobody is saying so. This was not done by close to 100% of one group of people, but by a considerably smaller percentage of a differnt group of people. (Moslems in Cologne) I

It is more ‘politically correct” however, to blame refugees than to blame an ethnic minority, or people who arrived a few years ago at least.

3) That this was spontaneous.

But in truth this had to be planned. It was no more spontaneous than the attack in Benghazi.

Of course if you believe that there just happened to be migrants/Syrians there and that this is what migrants/Syrians will do when left unguarded, then you might believe something like that.

4) That this was about sexual assault and rape. It wasn’t just sexual abuse. They were also stealing stuff.

This was planned looting – with, what would be to some people, side benefits.

Sammy Finkelman | January 11, 2016 at 7:44 pm

The assaults were a carefully laid plan.

Otherwise why just this year? And it is only this year.

You wouldn’t have had all these victims getting off at the train station for the New Year’s Eve fireworks if this had happened before. So this was indeed something new.

I think there was an intelligence failure. Nobody knew this was coming, but the gang.

And it really was a gang.

And here is the background:

http://www.smh.com.au/world/migrant-crisis/migrant-crisis-cologne-gang-has-no-fear-says-former-cop-20160111-gm3rxa.html

Former police officer Nick Hein says a migrant crime gang was operating with impunity at the station, in the knowledge that they could not lose their refugee status… [and apparently also, they wouldn’t be put in jail for very long.]

…Mr Hein wrote on Facebook on Sunday that he was a policeman for more than 11 years, and in the last three of those he had shifts at the main train station in Cologne.

“It was a special place,” he said. “You saw the depths of humanity – drugs, organised theft, asylum seekers and suicide.”

But pickpocketing was “by far the biggest crime phenomenon at Cologne central station”, he said.

“It was almost always the same group of offenders – north African asylum seekers.”

The sexual touching in fact may have been done to facilitate pickpocketing.

    Sammy Finkelman in reply to Sammy Finkelman. | January 11, 2016 at 7:55 pm

    Note: Already three years ago the train station was a problematic site. He only knows from three years ago. Not that ot started then. He found the problem there already then. It could have and probaly did, start many years earlier.

    The policy of the Cologne police department was apparently to leave them more or less alone, or to bother them much less, if they confined their criminal activity to the vicinity of the train station. Where the peiople who would get robbed were tourits, or people not from Cologne at any rate.

    What we had this New Year’s Eve was just somebody organizing something really, really, big.

Sammy Finkelman | January 11, 2016 at 8:12 pm

Angela Merkel is right:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35237173

“It’s completely improper… to link a group that appeared to come from North Africa with the refugees,” she said, after crisis talks with the police.

It is not improper. It is just factually wrong. These are two different groups of Moslems.

One group most of the population of Germany – and the western world – is barely aware of. It has been slowly collected over the past 3 to 15 or more years in Cologne, and some otehr localities, brought there one by one or in small groups by smugglers, who came through Spain, mostly from Morocco and Algeria and maybe from some other places, who applied for asylum when they got there and whose cases are winding their way through the courts possibly. They may have to stay affiliated with a gang because their cases may not be legitimate, and need constant re-inforcement. Who knows?

The other group is better known, and consists of people who came through Turkey and Greece, especially from Syria and Iraq and Afghanistan, mostly in 2015 and 2014.