Germany: minister says deportations possible in Cologne case

Germany’s top security official is stressing that anyone involved in New Year’s Eve assaults and robberies in Cologne must be punished regardless of where they come from, and says that if refugees were involved it must be addressed openly. They say numerous men were intoxicated.

Maas said German law allows for asylum seekers to be deported if they are sentenced to a year or more in prison, which is possible with sexual offenses.

A week after groups of men attacked, robbed and molested women in Cologne, the number of complaints has topped 120, including two claims of rape.

Commenting on the incidents in Germany, Dr Merkel said: “I don’t think that these are isolated cases”.

Cologne’s police, however, have been accused of covering up the attacks, with details emerging days after the incidents occurred.

The author of the report noted a level of disrespect for police “like I have never experienced in my 29 years of public service“. At one point, officers were kept from reaching people crying for help by tight clusters of men who blocked their way.

As many as 80 women have reported to be harassed on the said night by the police, moreover, it has been speculated that many people haven’t reported their assault. Incidences of same kind but of lesser magnitude were also reported from the city of Hamburg.

Police have not confirmed to CNN whether the suspects identified so far are asylum seekers, and government officials have warned against scapegoating migrants. You have to treat me kindly!

Although authorities have said there are no indications that the perpetrators of the assaults were asylum seekers, critics of Merkel’s open-door approach to those fleeing war have seized on the opportunity to draw a link.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been forced to defend her government’s refugee policy in the light of the attacks, calling them “intolerable”.

One woman said she and three friends were confronted by a group of “foreign-looking men” outside the train station.

“This is a completely new phenomenon in Helsinki”.

Alexandra Eul, a journalist for the German feminist magazine Emma, which is based in Cologne, says that many victims feel angry at the failure of the police to protect victims in the station.

“If far-right extremists attack North Africans then we are going to file a criminal complaint against police for incitement”.

Merkel has faced tough criticism after the attacks, a result of her decision to have Germany take in the bulk of the migrant influx that has created a crisis on Europe’s borders.

Dutch social affairs minister Lodewijk Asscher has criticised Cologne’s mayor for suggesting young women in the city keep odd men at arm’s length during the Carnival celebrations.

“When we arrived, our vehicles were pelted with firecrackers“, the report said.