Suspects in Cologne sex attacks 'claimed to be Syrian refugees'

[coyote]

Source: Telegraph

Leaked police report claims senior police officers feared fatalities and that one of those involved in attacks told officers: “I am Syrian. You have to treat me kindly. Mrs Merkel invited me"

Some of those involved in a series of sexual assaults against women in the German city of Cologne on New Year’s Eve claimed to be Syrian refugees, according to a leaked police report.

The outbreak of violence was also far more serious than previously thought, and at one point senior police officers feared “there could have been fatalities”.

Two newspapers have published what they claim is an internal report by a senior officer who was at the scene. If confirmed, the report could have far-reaching consequences for Angela Merkel’s government as it tries to deal with the aftermath of the assaults.

Read more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/12086473/Suspects-in-Cologne-sex-attacks-claimed-to-be-Syrian-refugees.html

[Bad Dog]

1. They need locking up regardless of where they came from.

Some may well be refugees, but nothing excuses criminal behaviour. This reminds me of the attacks on women protesters in Cairo during the Arab Spring. The problem is far right extremists are using this as an excuse to attack all immigrants/refugees, the vast majority of whom are law abiding decent people fleeing persecution.

[philosslayer]

19. I agree

First of all, this is a "leaked police report". I will wait until an official police report to make a judgement.

Secondly, this is turning into a bonanza for the right wing, who is using it as an opportunity to ramp up hate speech and Islamophobia. The interior minister for North Rhine-Westphalia said yesterday, "What happens on the right-wing platforms and in chat rooms is at least as awful as the acts of those assaulting the women." He also said that the right wing response is "poisoning the climate of our society."

Hopefully German authorities can get a handle on the right wing hate speech that is resulting.

[ChiTownDenny]

24. Yeah.

I'm not buying any of this either.

[6chars]

51. "At least as awful"???

Has the minister no sense of decency?

[duplex]

56. Speech is not the problem here..

Actions are. The biggest danger here is that the populace at large will view the steps authorities take to stop these assaults as not being stringent enough to truly solve the problem. That's when vigilantism will take hold and embolden the far right skin head types to take matters into their own hands, and they won't be saying mean things to effect "payback". Words don't hurt people, assault, crime and retribution do.

[DetlefK]

2. If Germany deports them, they will be back in a week.

Another tore up his residence permit before the eyes of police, and told them: “You can’t do anything to me, I can get a new one tomorrow.”

They came to Germany without passports. So what keeps them from doing that a second time?

[coyote]

3. It´s amazing to me, so few have been arrested.

If they committed Steuerhinterziehung on the other hand, then the police, Finanzamt, and court system would be all over them and in jail within a week.

[DetlefK]

5. The big problem is finding them.

They have no passports, no address.
I guess the cops don't have body-cams on them, so identifying them by face would also be next to impossible.
A refugee can easily disappear and reregister posing as a new refugee.

[EX500rider]

61. "Steuerhinterziehung"=tax evasion for those that don't speak German

[FarrenH]

58. Fingerprints out. Fingerprints in.

Accurate fingerprint matching systems are incredibly cheap and accurate these days. Having no papers is no guarantee of anonymity as long as they fingerprint them before deporting them.

[cali]

6. That is not only offensive, it's fakse

[uppityperson]

32. Who of these are nazis? WTF? You might want to consider clarifying or deleting that.

[Itchinjim]

38. No.

[uppityperson]

39. ok. Let us assume you meant Syrians were responsible for the holocaust since to Cologne police

obviously weren't.

Which seems like a really odd thing to believe.

[Itchinjim]

43. Whatever

Sheesh.

[ellenrr]

7. this is bullshit. as if a refugee, fleeing war and persecution,

hungry, scared, left everything behind- hoping simply for a place of refuge--
is going to make trouble for anyone.

This is clearly an action by the right-wing to raise animosity toward refugees.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

8. Good grief.

[coyote]

9. These refugees look more like economic refugees to me.

Not ones fleeing hunger and persecution. They traveled through 8-9 countries to get to Germany...they all want to come to Germany, no doubt for the social benefits. When 3000 of them were in Austria, only 12 applied to stay in Austria, the rest wanted to come to Germany. Austria is not exactly a bad place to live.

[Nihil]

48. Oh stop bothering those "concerned" people with facts.

> They traveled through 8-9 countries to get to Germany...
> they all want to come to Germany, no doubt for the social benefits.
> When 3000 of them were in Austria, only 12 applied to stay in Austria,
> the rest wanted to come to Germany. Austria is not exactly a bad place to live.

They are set like concrete in their naive belief that it is all a nasty right-wing plot
to discredit those poor desperate foreign men of military age.

[Elmergantry]

10. You would be right.

If that's what they are.

But they are not.

They are economic migrants seeking the German welfare benefits.

[TubbersUK]

11. wtf ?

While I've absolutely no doubt that the vast majority of refugees are entirely law-abiding and intent only on carving out new and productive lives for themselves and their families (and I would hate to see any scapegoating), I find your statement utterly ludicrous and more than a little disgusting.

[pampango]

12. Well said. This may help too: 5 Major Myths Of Europe's Refugee And Migrant Crisis Debunked

Hundreds of thousands of people have fled to Europe from repressive and conflict-laden countries this year in the largest refugee crisis since World War II. The sudden influx has sparked an urgent discussion among the European Union nations over what response is necessary to mitigate the crisis. While incredible displays of generosity and solidarity have come out of that debate, the conversation has also included talking points and narratives that are more rooted in myth than fact.

Many of these false claims about the refugee and migrant crisis have been repeated ad nauseam in the media and online comment sections, as well as by prominent politicians in Europe and the United States. The propagation of these myths not only distorts the reality of the crisis and those caught up in it, but can also affect how states and populations move to help those in need.

"A lot of politics is relatively fact-free in this arena, and we need to much better understand what drives migration before we can form the right policies," migration expert Hein de Haas told The WorldPost in an interview on the subject last month.

The WorldPost took a look at five of the major myths circulating around the refugee and migrant crisis.

Myth #1: The Majority Of People Are Economic Migrants
Myth #2: Migrants And Refugees Can Just Stay In Turkey
Myth #3: They Don't Look Like They Need Help
Myth #4: Islamic State Militants Are Posing As Refugees
Myth #5: Refugees And Migrants Will Ruin Economies

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/europe-refugee-migrant-crisis-myths_55f83aa7e4b09ecde1d9b4bc

The "relatively fact-free" nature of politics when in comes to refugees sounds like a republican creation but the far-right in Europe is good at it too.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

14. Got any articles about the myth of RW gangs engaging mob rape false flag conspiracies?

[pampango]

15. No. Just the one about RW myths about the refugees in Europe. n/t

[Gawdless Pinko Lib]

13. I suspect you're right, ellenrr

If I were a German who wanted to keep refugees out of the country (and also a misogynistic psycho), I would go out of my way to proclaim that I was a foreign refugee. Remember, Europeans get suntans in tropical vacation spots, just like we do.

[FrodosPet]

18. As a practitioner and fan of of satire, I salute you!

This is a 4 Poe reply.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law

[TubbersUK]

21. Now this just has to be satire ..... please tell me it is.

I feel like I've fallen down a rabbit hole

ETA: If it is satire, it's a damn good example.

[snooper2]

16. yes because those poor refugees would never do anything wrong, just need a blankey

and some warm milk

[philosslayer]

20. That is what it looks like more and more to me also

Its just WAY to convenient...

[mwrguy]

40. +1

[bdwker]

25. Clearly ??

not really

[Lizzie Poppet]

28. FFS.

Creative Speculation is thataway --->

[totodeinhere]

29. Bullshit. Stop apologizing for these people.

n/t

[840high]

31. BS - keep closing your eyes - isn't

PC great?

[Skittles]

35. "Mrs. Merkel invited me"

it's not even propaganda done well

[RandiFan1290]

50. Absolutely Correct!

Just amazing watching the racist trolls lose their shit while trying to insult you.

Thank you!

[Sunlei]

17. so far, its media BS.Let them id from the videos and then we will see who is actually charged .

[Marty McGraw]

22. Who talks like that?

This totally reeks of an ISIS ploy to stir up trouble to get people up in arms with the refugees. A further attempt as a recruiting tool.

Fine. They get sent back. There is no where else for them to turn. ISIS will get them for cheap if not downright slaves for their cause.

“I am Syrian. You have to treat me kindly. Mrs Merkel invited me"

Who the fuck talks like that?

Then again... we do have our Bundy Folk here...

[christx30]

27. "Who talks like that?"

Maybe someone that doesn't speak much of the local language.

[mwrguy]

42. Someone pretending to be Syrian

We will never know, since they were conveniently released.

"We had a Syrian, sure we did, but he's gone now so you can't ask him"

[Marty McGraw]

44. Yep

( '-')

[MariaThinks]

23. claims that someone is a 'peaceful refugee' cannot be taken at face value, neither should we put

all refugees into that same status.

[Elmer S. E. Dump]

26. You'd think this was India, not Germany.

[coyote]

30. Also, this shit happened not only in Köln, but in

Frankfurt am Main:

http://www.fr-online.de/frankfurt/silvester-uebergriffe-auch-in-frankfurt,1472798,33467202.html

München & Salzburg:

http://www.rosenheim24.de/bayern/muenchen-raucherpause-mehreren-maennern-belaestigt-6013736.html

3 Syrians GANG RAPED a 14 & 15 year old in

http://www.swr.de/landesschau-aktuell/bw/suedbaden/silvester-in-weil-am-rhein-offenbar-zwei-maedchen-vergewaltigt/-/id=1552/did=16755614/nid=1552/nyy6xb/index.html

Singen:

http://www.wochenblatt.net/heute/nachrichten/article/zwei-maenner-attackieren-30-jaehrige.html

all done by "refugees"

[840high]

33. Thanks.

[bdwker]

34. Its wrong..

that anyone blame an entire religion or culture because of the actions of a few bad apples.

[coyote]

36. I don't think anyone is blaming an entire religion or culture for what is going on:

However you don't swing the doors open and invite a million refugees from a war torn nation like Syria without vetting them. This was a totally bat shit crazy idea from Merkel to let this many refugees in.

[trillion]

46. Right. The fact that the refugees are more likely to be sexually attacked by any country they go

to's own perverts just doesn't get mentioned though. Too bad we can't vet the citizens of that country and see if there are any home grown perverts, rapist, and other attackers.

[coyote]

47. Oh no no no.

This is a culture where men simply do not respect women. I have never heard of hundreds of men gathering in Germany to sexually harass woman at the Hauptbahnhof. So please, saying one's own home grown perverts is not mentioned is bullshit. Every country has its sickos, but Germany has never seen anything at this scale. Stop making excuses for this behavior.

[philosslayer]

53. No....

But in the past, hundreds (actually thousands) of men gathered in Germany to do far, far worse things. To suggest that Germans are incapable of this type of behavior is laughable.

[6chars]

52. For example in Sweden

Where the number of rapes has skyrocketed. Seems like the refugee women are irresistible targets for Swedish men.

[FrodosPet]

55. And it is also wrong to give someone a pass

Just because they belong to the "oppressed" religion.

Only a few yahoos are blaming all Muslims for the actions of the radicals. But there ARE radicals. There ARE hooligans. They are coming into the west with values hostile to ours. They do not share the same sense of personal freedom and tolerance that MOST (no, not all, but most) of us in the western world do.

They come from the most macho cultures and strident religious interpretations on the planet. But there is this need of people like yourself who only wants to see beauty and fairness and justice to ignore this fact and excuse extremely bad behavior based on false equivalence.

We need to react calmly. We need to keep our own reactionaries under control, but that is a whole lot harder when the government and media engage in a blatant cover up of the truth in order to prevent hurt feelings.

[LittleBlue]

37. Thank you

I feel sorry for Germans. They've bent backwards to accommodate people when they had no obligation, and this is how they are repaid.

[flamingdem]

41. If true that he said that about Merkel, etc. then it's likely Isis orders being followed, that is

to discourage people leaving Syria by removing Germany's welcomen mat. Bad propaganda when people are streaming out of the Caliphate, means it's not so grand..

[trillion]

45. Actually the police all over the world have a lot in common. No, I don't trust them at their word

that the person was Syrian or a refugee.

[FrodosPet]

57. But they COULD be, right?

Too many witnesses. Too much evidence.

Cops are assholes therefore Middle Eastern and North African men are innocent is a logic fail.

[Igel]

49. cairo.

During the protests 5 years ago there was the same behavior.

Not refugees so condemnation of the culture involved was easy. Politically appropriate, even.

[SolutionisSolidarity]

54. That was on video, but I bet people here blame Lara Logan.

After all - she is white. Her dad was even a white male, the very worst of humanity. That was probably just another false flag rape.

[millbrooky]

59. Has it been confirmed?

that they are Syrian refugees?

[coyote]

60. Yes

http://news.yahoo.com/germany-identifies-31-suspects-cologne-sex-attacks-113248970.html