The shocking New Year’s Eve sex attacks on hundreds of women in Germany’s Cologne and Hamburg, and several other European cities, have been identified by top European Union officials as no more than a “matter of public order,” the EU officials concluding in just-released internal minutes that the sex attacks had nothing to do with the current European “refugee crisis.”
According to the Telegraph , European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and his inner circle of European Commission members plan to be the “voice of reason” amidst the storm of anger surrounding the Cologne New Year’s Eve sex attacks reportedly carried out by young Middle Eastern and North African male immigrants.
This voice of reason by Juncker and other EU members is outlined in the their internal minutes, disclosing that they plan to tell the European public that there is no connection between Europe’s current migration crisis and the violent Cologne sex attacks on German and other European women.
This announcement from the EU brass is also reportedly an effort to quell any “xenophobic” backlash Europeans may have against immigrants and refugees, citing “the importance of the (EU) Commission’s continuing to play its coordinating role and sounding the voice of reason to defuse tensions and counter populist rhetoric, (while also calling for) the unconditional rejection of false associations between certain criminal acts, such as the attacks on women in Cologne on New Year’s Eve, and the mass influx of refugees.”
The internal EU minutes regarding the violent Cologne sex attacks come from the European Commission’s January 13 weekly cabinet meeting which largely focused on how the Cologne sex attacks, and other skyrocketing problems of alleged immigrant crime and violence in Europe, could be dramatically turning European public opinion against the thousands of immigrants and refugees flowing into Europe from the Middle East and Africa.
One of the Cologne sex attack victims related to CNN what occurred on New Year’s Eve in Cologne, her ordeal including sexual assault, theft, and an inability of the police to do anything to stop the attacks.
“The men surrounded us and started to grab our behinds and touch our crotches. They touched us everywhere. I wanted to take my friend and leave. I turned around and in that moment someone grabbed my bag. Nobody noticed and nobody helped us. I just wanted to get out.”
Another victim of the Cologne sex attacks also expressed the feeling of helplessness she faced in the sea of groping immigrant men, saying, “But there were so many people around me that there was no control. There was no way out. There was no way to protect yourself. We ran to the police. But we saw the police were so understaffed. They couldn’t take care of us and we as women suffered the price.”
The New Year’s Eve Cologne sex attacks and other violence reportedly involved a crowd of about 1000 people that first surrounded, then attacked female New Year revelers.
Following the Cologne attacks, over 500 criminal complaints were filed with about 40 percent of those being for sexual assault. There were also two reports of women being raped.
Though in the days following the Cologne sex attacks officials said that “people with a migration background were almost exclusively responsible for the criminal acts,” the public would later accuse German politicians and the media of making light of the violent episodes.
Stories of some of the immigrant attackers being unapologetic and nonchalant about their involvement in the Cologne sex attacks also infuriated the European public, one Syrian immigrant telling police, “You have to treat me kindly. (German Chancellor) Mrs. Merkel invited me.”
But in the European Union meeting’s minutes, Mr. Juncker focuses on a need to preserve “credibility of the Commission” as it struggles to “provide political inspiration for Europe” despite “unworthy” accusations being leveled by Member State leaders that have attacked the reputation of the EU Commission.
Among those not following the EU commission’s example of accepting immigrants and refugees in the wake of the Cologne immigrant sex attacks is Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico, who said he wouldn’t be taking in any refugees because they are “impossible to integrate” due to their “different relationship to women.”
In the end, whether in Stockholm, Sweden, or Cologne, Germany, Europe is faced with an immigration problem that has unfortunately brought with it an epidemic of violence and sex attacks against women.
[Image by Jens Schlueter/Getty Images]