“The number of reported New Year’s Eve attacks in Cologne, Germany, has now risen to 516, according to police, who said that 40 percent of those involved sexual assaults.
Meanwhile, authorities also said that a group of six Pakistanis and a Syrian national were attacked in the city late on Sunday night. Two of the Pakistani men were hospitalized after being set upon by about of 20 assailants.
The local Express newspaper reported that Sunday’s attacks had been planned by “rocker and hooligan gangs,” who had used social media to launch a “manhunt” of foreigners.
Tensions remain high in Germany as citizens struggle to comprehend the consequences of the mass attacks on December 31. Blame has fallen on the police for their insufficient reaction, on migrants because of the reported origin of the attackers, and on the German government….
The scale of the New Year’s Eve assaults has given leverage to anti-immigration groups, which have long been calling for Germany to toughen its immigration policies. However, some politicians and women’s rights activists have accused them of using this incident to further their own political aims…..
Women’s rights activists — who stood separately holding signs on the steps of the cathedral — were verbally attacked by passersby, who called them dumb and stupid for suggesting that sexual assaults happen all over the world, and that perpetrators can be of all nationalities.””
“A few kilometers away, in the “Multi Kulti” center in the neighborhood of Mülheim, several women have gathered in an attempt to work out what measures should be taken to make the streets of Cologne safe again.
“No one is talking about the fact that this is happening to women every day,” Tanja, an activist and one of the initiators of the event told DW.
“People are insisting on making this a political story, trying to shift the focus on pro- or anti-refugees. But in fact, no one is listening to what we have to say – the women who have been suffering from this violence in the streets on a daily basis long before refugees even came here,” she says.
The violence on New Year’s Eve was not different from that during any other big-scale celebration in the city, according to Tanja. “Because refugees are now a burning topic, the media all of a sudden report about these events, but what nobody wants to admit is that these things happen all the time. I’m sorry to break this to you, but German-born men also harass and rape.”
