by Mark Linnhoefer – On Tuesday, German officials were accused by both the police union and women’s right groups of not necessarily ignoring but definitely playing down reports of all kinds of sexual offenses happening in refugee shelters for fear of an adverse public reaction to those seeking asylum.
The German Interior Minister, Thomas de Maiziere, warned about antagonizing asylum seekers and says that many of the statistics about sex crimes by refugees circulating on social media are fraudulent, calling them “rumors” that often turn out to be “not true” after federal investigations. He furthermore says that although there are aspects that life in the shelters need improvement, there is “no reason for a general suspicion of refugees.”
Cheif of the police union Rainer Wendt, however, thinks that the problem is of larger proportions and says that while he understands that the German government has a “desire to calm things politically” he also feels there is a lot of “glossing over going on” and that utterances like the one from de Maiziere do not “represent reality.” Wendt goes on to refer to reports from police chiefs that apparently paint a very clear picture of rising sexual abuses and harassment and even forced prostitution in the shelters.
Several charity organizations have complained about this issue in an open letter, calling for gender separation and safe zones for women. According to such charities, many women have come forward and testified to acts of sexual violence regularly committed in refugee shelters.
The public opinion in Germany has been polarized by the influx of refugees, and the government is treading carefully so as to not give the right-wing opponents of current asylum laws any more issues to exploit for their ideology. This stance would certainly explain the alleged denial of the problems, but some politicians think this should not stand in the way of helping women caught in sexual abuse and as such needs to be addressed by the government regardless of dumb fascists that will use such statistics to ‘prove’ their twisted ideas.
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