The Pitters' Place

I can't seem to find a measured article or discussion that avoids racist speculation or that doesn't involve certain types of "progressives" throwing around terms like "regressive left"...accusing other leftists of being afraid to talk about it to avoid being accused of racism...just because some folks may be wise enough to avoid potentially spreading misinformation on such a suspicious story until details are clearer. Since it sounds like racists wet dream.

Reading between the lines on all the various bits of coverage and articles on it I've seen it's likely a group of a few hundred north african/Arabic men - probably immigrants/refugees - used the chaos of night to attack/harass women.

There are reports in some places saying they attacked young girls, but I've not seen anything sensible to support that. So it's not as bad as some of the right press is making out but at least one woman was raped so it's certainly not good. And it's definitely not helping the case for migration.

OpiateOfTheMasses wrote:Reading between the lines on all the various bits of coverage and articles on it I've seen it's likely a group of a few hundred north african/Arabic men - probably immigrants/refugees - used the chaos of night to attack/harass women.

There are reports in some places saying they attacked young girls, but I've not seen anything sensible to support that. So it's not as bad as some of the right press is making out but at least one woman was raped so it's certainly not good. And it's definitely not helping the case for migration.

This is basically correct.
What also happened, and this is what sparked the outrage: The police didn't do enough to prevent the harassments and thefts (the police management didn't send enough officers), and the next day first didn't report the facts.

What also caused outrage in Germany was that when the police finally did mention that harassments and thefts had happened, they said that there was no indication that asylum seekers were involved; but they knew that there were asylum seekers involved. So the police lied, and this is a found opportunity for various rightist groups in Germany to demand that asylum seekers be expelled.

In the meantime the police chief has been suspended, and is facing criminal charges for failure of assistance.
Most articles I read about this are in German; and the following one is not bad in my opinion.
http://www1.wdr.de/themen/aktuell/innen ... n-102.html

Leaving aside the ramifications for the police in the aftermath of how they dealt with this, whilst it's not as bad as has been reported in some places it is bad. And this certainly provides the right wing/anti-immigration groups with plenty of ammunition - for once real ammunition.

Even my wife - who's normally extremely liberal - sat up and started asking what sort of controls we have in place following this.

OpiateOfTheMasses wrote:Leaving aside the ramifications for the police in the aftermath of how they dealt with this, whilst it's not as bad as has been reported in some places it is bad. And this certainly provides the right wing/anti-immigration groups with plenty of ammunition - for once real ammunition.

Even my wife - who's normally extremely liberal - sat up and started asking what sort of controls we have in place following this.

We have the useful control of the English Channel

Blade Azaezel wrote:

OpiateOfTheMasses wrote:Leaving aside the ramifications for the police in the aftermath of how they dealt with this, whilst it's not as bad as has been reported in some places it is bad. And this certainly provides the right wing/anti-immigration groups with plenty of ammunition - for once real ammunition.

Even my wife - who's normally extremely liberal - sat up and started asking what sort of controls we have in place following this.

We have the useful control of the English Channel

Silly of me. I forgot all about that.

Forget what I said then - we're alright.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-35326090

Some of them just aren't getting the hint that they've got to treat women with a bit more respect or the local population will really start to turn against them...

The main thing that bothers me is how so many commenters seem to assume that, until migration happened, the West was a liberal feminist utopia where women never ever got raped by local white men.

But the thing is, Anakin, we need to be mistrustful of these immigrants because a lot of Middle Eastern and South Asian cultures have an ingrained misogyny that means they disrespect women whereas in the West, everyone is basically equAHAHAHAHAHA sorry I couldn't finish typing that.

aels wrote:But the thing is, Anakin, we need to be mistrustful of these immigrants because a lot of Middle Eastern and South Asian cultures have an ingrained misogyny that means they disrespect women whereas in the West, everyone is basically equAHAHAHAHAHA sorry I couldn't finish typing that.

Hush now. The men are talking.