Sexual assaults in Germany raise major questions

This Dec. 31, 2015, photo shows people gathering in front of the main railway station in Cologne, western Germany.

A group of Pakistanis and a Syrian have been attacked in Cologne amid tensions over New Year’s Eve assaults in the city that have been blamed largely on foreigners, German police said.

Emotions are running high in German cities after gangs of young migrant men sexually assaulted women at New Year in mass attacks in Cologne and other towns.

Of the 19 suspects identified by police, 10 are asylum seekers and nine are in Germany illegally, according to a report submitted to a parliamentary committee looking into the crimes.

The right-wing group accused Merkel of destroying their homeland by allowing in 1.1 million asylum seekers a year ago. But in recent months, she has vowed to “measurably reduce” arrivals and promised to give the authorities more powers to crack down on migrants who commit crimes.

Audience members applauded when Merkel said refugees have to “abide by our values” and warned that “I don’t think we can expect people to see cases of theft, insults of women or sexual coercion again and again” without denying perpetrators the right to stay in Germany.

Today, the minister for North Rhine-Westphalia, the German state where Cologne is located, said people of foreign descent were responsible for virtually all of the violence on New Year’s Eve in the city.

Ms Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union and her Social Democratic coalition ally agreed on Tuesday on legislative proposals to ease the expulsion of refugees who commit crimes including sexual assault and attacks on police officers, as fallout from the attacks heightens the threat to the chancellor’s open-door refugee policy. Twenty-two of 32 suspects identified by authorities are asylum seekers, the Interior Ministry said.

Women appeared to be intentional targets of the attacks, which were allegedly carried out by large groups of seeming Arabs or North Africans.

Cologne shockwaves continue to reverberate in Berlin, where chancellor Angela Merkel is on the defensive after last year’s liberal immigration policy.

Dr Merkel said on Monday that Europe was ” vulnerable” because it was not yet in control of the situation as it would like to be.

But he added: “I am not saying that there was no organisation, but it is not organised crime – that would have a different quality for me, we would be talking about… hierarchical groups”.

“We will stiffen criminal law to produce deportation simpler”, Mr Maas said, including that binding arrangements could be sought with wrongdoers’ country of origin.

A group broke away from the Legida demonstration and began smashing shop windows, burning cars and setting off fireworks that ignited the first floor of a building.