Iraqi Refugee Detained in Germany over Rape & Abuse of 2 Chinese Students

    People walking on campus at the Ruhr-Universitaet in Bochum, Germany. © Henning Kaiser / 
    DPA / Global Look Press

An Iraqi refugee has been arrested in Germany over suspicion that he abused and raped two Chinese students near a university in Bochum. The suspect has been living nearby with his wife and two children since last year.

Police officials said on Tuesday that they have detained a 31-year-old Iraqi man living at a refugee hostel suspected of sexually assaulting Chinese students who reported being attacked near Ruhr-Bochum University in recent months, Die Welt reported.

Chief of Bochum police Kerstin Wittmeier said news of the arrest was “a great relief” and “a good sign not only for the two victims, but also for many women who felt unsafe, especially in the vicinity of Ruhr University.”

In the first assault, which took place on the university campus on August 6, a 21-year-old Chinese student was walking back to her dorm from a local underground station when she was overpowered and dragged into the bushes by her assailant, who then tried to rape the young woman while threatening her with a knife, police commissioner Roland Wefelscheidt said.

Nearly two months later, on November 16, another Chinese student, aged 27, was abused and raped in the bushes.

The suspect, who has been charged with attempted murder, rape, and aggravated assault, refutes the charges. His name has not been disclosed.

The key evidence leading to the suspect’s arrest reportedly came from the 27-year-old victim’s partner, who somehow noticed the perpetrator near the crime scene and took numerous pictures of him before he ran away. These were then used to identify the suspect, and subsequent DNA tests were taken. Police are trying to determine if he has committed other crimes, seeking tip-offs from other Iraqi refugees, Die Welt reported.

Between 1994 and 2002, twenty-one cases of sexual assault and rape were committed near and in the city of Bochum in North Rhine-Westphalia by the so-called “university phantom,” a still unknown perpetrator whom the police have failed to catch.

The detention of the Bochum suspect comes just days after German police arrested a 17-year-old Afghan refugee, who is charged with assaulting Maria Landenberger, a 19-year-old student who was raped and probably drowned on the night of October 16. Her body was found the next day on the bank of the Dreisam River in Freiburg, home of one of Germany’s top-tier universities.

Investigators have confirmed that the underage suspect entered Germany illegally and later filed an asylum request as an unaccompanied minor. He then lived with a foster family in Freiburg. The murder has provoked outrage, with Germans once again blaming Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ‘open-door’ policy for what happened in Freiburg.

However, top German officials have urged the public not to scapegoat refugees, warning against inciting racial hatred, while Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel has implored Germans not to exploit the crime “for incitement and conspiracy propaganda.”

Steffen Seibert, Merkel’s spokesman, said earlier this week that the government expects the perpetrator to be punished “to the fullest extent of the law,” but added “we’re talking about the possible act of one Afghan refugee, not that of a whole group of people, who are Afghans or refugees like him.”

    Bochum, Germany

5 Afghan Refugees Detained in Austria Following Sexual Assaults

The new normal in Europe

Police in northern Austria have detained five migrants from Afghanistan over accusations of sexually harassing women during a wine festival in the city of Wels. The mayor demanded “zero tolerance” in the wake of the alleged assaults.

According to various Austrian media outlets, police said five Afghan asylum seekers were detained Sunday over links to the sexual assaults, which were said to have happened early Saturday.

Four of the alleged perpetrators appeared to be unaccompanied teenage refugees, aged between 15 and 16, while the fifth is 22 years old. “An assailant aged 15 was identified by one of the victims and accused of” sexually harassing her, DiePresse reports.

According to police, the affected women, eight so far, have reported that the group of assailants included at least two more males. Law enforcers are currently checking this information, while calling on potential victims and eyewitnesses to forward any information to police.

The assaults in Wels happened in a packed celebration tent during a wine festival. “The women reported that the men held them and grabbed between their legs,” Nachrichten.at cited police as saying.

In the aftermath of the incident, at least three women immediately filed legal complaints against the suspects. Reacting to the assaults, Wels’s mayor Andreas Rabl demanded “zero tolerance” for such cases in a post on his Facebook page.

“Zero tolerance and full consequences for the perpetrators,” Rabl wrote, adding that his hometown should not turn into a “greater district for refugees.”

Meanwhile, another case of sexual assault during the same festival happened early Sunday, according to Austrian media. A 23-year-old Iraqi refugee was questioned by police after a woman reported she was grabbed by the man at around 5 a.m. local time on Sunday at the festival. The refugee was later set free.

The organizers of Wels’s wine festival issued an apology in the wake of Saturday’s assaults, while also beefing up security.

“We deeply regret the incident during the last night. Our top priority remains the security of the festival’s guests,” the statement reads, as quoted by DiePresse.

Last year, a man identified as Amir. A., an asylum seeker from Iraq, raped a 10-year-old boy at a swimming pool in Vienna. After the attack, the man claimed to police it was a “sexual emergency.” The assailant was then sentenced to six years in prison for sexual abuse and the rape of a minor.

The most striking case of sexual harassment by refugees occurred however across the border in Germany last year.

Back then hundreds of women said they were harassed by attackers of “North African or Middle Eastern appearances” on 2016 New Year’s Eve near the central railway station in Cologne. Similar cases were also reported in other German cities, including Hamburg.

According to the latest figures, published by Die Welt, police registered over 1,200 legal complaints, with at least half of them citing sexual assaults. Law enforcers identified 281 suspects, mostly coming from Tunisia, Morocco, Syria and other Arab countries, while adding that several dozen Germans were also among them. 

Would that be Germans with Arab or African heritage? Would they be Muslims?

At least 22 perpetrators were convicted and received minor money penalties or a maximum of a year in prison.

The case sparked massive outrage across Germany and triggered numerous protests, with people lambasting Chancellor Merkel’s open-door policy toward refugees.

In July, the German parliament unanimously passed a tougher new law on sex offenses, making any form of non-consensual sexual contact a crime and easing the deportation procedure for migrants involved in sex assaults.

German Rape Laws Enter the 21st Century

‘No means no’: Germany toughens sex crime laws

 in light of Cologne attacks

The Reichstag building © Fabrizio Bensch / Reuters

The German parliament has unanimously passed a tougher new law on sex offenses, making any form of non-consensual sexual contact a crime and easing the deportation procedure for migrants involved in sex assaults.

The legislation, dubbed “no means no,” covers cases in which a victim withheld consent but did not physically resist the sexual attack. Under the new law, courts should take into account circumstances in which victims did not resist because they were incapacitated, taken by surprise or threatened with greater violence if they objected sexual contact.

Previously, the law required victims to prove that they not only objected to the offender’s advances but also physically resisted an assault before any charges for sex crimes could be brought. According to advocates of the new law, such a situation led to the underreporting of sex assaults in Germany.

"In the past there were cases where women were raped but the perpetrators couldn't be punished," said Manuela Schwesig, the German federal minister of family affairs, senior citizens, women and youth.

"The change in the law will help increase the number of victims who choose to press charges, lower the number of criminal prosecutions that are shelved and ensure sexual assaults are properly punished," she added, as quoted by AP.

According to German Justice Minister Heiko Maas, only one in 10 rapes is reported in Germany and just 8 percent of rape trials result in convictions, AP reports.

That means less than 1% of rapes in Germany result in a conviction. 

The law is also aimed at bringing German legislation in line with that of other developed countries and at closing the holes in what some lawmakers defined as an extremely lax legislation.

Preceded by years of heated discussion within the German justice system and fierce debates in parliament, the new law was eventually approved in view of the Cologne sex attacks on New Year’s Eve 2015, which provoked public indignation and sparked a fresh discussion of the issue of sexual violence in Germany.

All 601 lawmakers who took part in the debate on the law voted for it. The MPs gave a standing ovation as the law passed the German parliament’s lower house.

Entitled ‘Improving the protection of sexual self-determination,’ the law makes it easier to deport migrant sex offenders, classifies groping as a sex crime punishable with sentences of up to two years in jail, and envisages stricter punitive measures in cases of sexual assault committed by groups.

Now, any sexual crime conviction can be used against an asylum seeker or migrant in processing their application.

So that means that previously rape charges couldn't be used in the processing of an asylum seeker or migrant? Seriously!?

In January, the German parliament already toughened the regulations concerning deportation of migrants and refugees convicted of crimes. However, at that time, it required proof of “violence, threats or physical endangerment” along with sexual crime, as well as a prison sentence of at least one year for an offender to be deported.

Good grief! It obviously wasn't used very much.

The new law also makes it illegal for a person to be a part of a group involved in sexual assault, even if that person did not directly participate in the attack. Anyone "who at least tacitly accepts that crimes are committed by a group they are a part of" can now be prosecuted, the legislation says, as quoted by AFP.

This stipulation, which is apparently aimed at dealing with incidents similar to the Cologne sex attacks, provoked criticism from some opposition lawmakers, who branded it unconstitutional and populist.

“The success is accompanied by a bitter aftertaste, which indulges a post-Cologne populism,” said Cornelia Moehring from the Left Party.

Numerous allegations of sexual assaults reported in Cologne on New Year’s Eve sparked a huge wave of public indignation and criticism directed against the German authorities.

In particular, German police were heavily criticized for their perceived lack of activity during New Year’s Eve celebrations in the city as well as for their poor investigations into the crimes. Cologne Police Chief Wolfgang Albers was forced to resign a week after the incident.

In the city of Cologne alone, 1,049 people were victims of attacks allegedly committed by men from North Africa and the Middle East on New Year's Eve, with about 821 complaints being filed to police. Exactly 482 of the complaints reported sexual assaults, Die Welt reported on January 21.

On Thursday, a German court brought the first guilty verdicts on the Cologne attacks. An Iraqi and an Algerian were found guilty of committing sex offenses by a Cologne court and were handed one-year probationary sentences, German media report.

Wahoo! That should teach them!

Mass Brawl in Belgian Refugee Center over Girl Refusing to Wear Headscarf

Afghans make it clear - they will not be assimilated!

© Face of a dying Nation / YouTube

About 100 refugees from various countries clashed with each other in a massive fight in a refugee shelter in Belgium that left seven people injured. The brawl occurred amid a dispute over a girl refusing to wear a headscarf.

The riot occurred in the town of Leopoldsburg, Belgium, and involved Syrian, Afghan and Iraqi refugees fighting with each other, Belgian media report. The refugees split up into two groups, with Syrians and Iraqis clashing with Afghans.

In a video of the fight published on YouTube, the refugees can be seen pulling no punches, bringing to bear plastic chairs, broomsticks and rubbish bins. The scuffle then spilled over into clashes with police, who were immediately deployed to the scene.

As a result, seven people sustained injuries and one of them was hospitalized. Eleven refugees were detained for deliberate assault and destruction of property. Most were later released.

“The four that [started the fight] have been transferred to a detention center. The seven others are individually housed and distributed in other reception centers in Flanders,” An Luyten, a spokeswoman for the Red Cross in Leopoldsburg, told Belgian HLN News.

The brawl was caused by a dispute over a Syrian girl refusing to wear a headscarf, for which she was bullied by several Afghan refugees.

“Two or three Afghans had been targeting a young girl from Syria for a couple of days because she was not covering her head… which is weird, because several other girls were also not wearing a headscarf. It is not clear why they were after this girl in particular,” Luyten told Flanders News, commenting on the incident.

The dispute divided the camp, eventually growing into a fight between Syrians and Iraqis who defended the girl, and Afghans expressed their outrage.

Kudos to the Syrians and Iraqis for defending the girl, otherwise, she would probably have been gang-raped.

It should be obvious to all that Afghans 

will never even attempt to assimilate into 

western culture, nor do they want anyone else to.

Theo Francken, the Belgian minister for asylum and migration, condemned the incident and denounced it as “unacceptable.”

“I find it totally unacceptable that some young Afghans find it necessary to tell Syrian girls to wear a headscarf and that they should not dress like Western girls,” he said, as quoted by HLN News.

“They come here, they are guests here. We are not theirs. They have to adapt to our rules,” he added.

Wouter Beke, the mayor of Leopoldsburg, even suggested to separate people of different nationalities living in the shelter as well as to separate single men from families. However, these proposals were rejected by Francken, who said such measure could send a wrong signal and “encourage segregation rather than integration.”

5 Iraqi Men Arrested In Colorado Springs Sex Assault

Mohammed's privilege comes to America

Police: Victim Says She Blacked Out After Being Offered Lemonade

Five Iraqi immigrants accused of rape

COLORADO SPRINGS POLICE DEPARTMENT
Five Iraqi men have been arrested in connection with the sexual assault of a Colorado Springs woman, who told police she blacked out after being offered what she believed was lemonade, police said Monday.

The investigation began on July 22 when an officer was called on a reported sexual assault at an apartment on Woodside Lane, police said.

After finding a significant amount of blood throughout the apartment, the officer went to Memorial Hospital Central to interview the victim.

The woman told the officer that after returning home from working a night shift at about 1:30 a.m. July 21, she decided to take a walk and check her mailbox.

She heard a disturbance and saw two groups of men who were on the verge of fighting, police said. The woman stood between the groups, trying to calm them down.

After the dispute ended, the woman told police she was invited into the apartment of one of the men. She entered the apartment and met three other young men, all about 20 years old.

The men, "Began to share how difficult it was living in a foreign country, and the victim sympathized with them as she has lived in foreign countries herself and also has a son their age," police said.

"During their conversation, the victim was given what she believed was lemonade and had no recollection after that," police said.

A medical examination at the hospital revealed the woman had suffered significant internal injuries consistent with blunt force trauma and serious bodily injuries, police said.

Detectives conducted an extensive investigation, including the collection of evidence, the execution of search warrants and arrest warrants, photo line-ups and several interviews, police said.

The investigation resulted in the arrest of the following five men:

Sarmad Fadhi Mohammed was booked on investigation of sexual assault and being an accessory to a crime.
Jasim Mohammed Hassin Ramadon was booked on sexual assault and being an accessory to a crime.
Mustafa Sataar Al Feraji was booked on being an accessory to a crime.
Ali Mohammed Hasan Al Juboori was booked on being an accessory to a crime.
Yasir Jabbar Jasim was booked on being an accessory to a crime.

Police said all the men are Iraqi nationals who have obtained legal permanent resident status in the United State during the past 5 years. If convicted of felony sexual assault, the men could be deported.

Two reasons for posting this story: 

1. Why was no-one charged with assault causing bodily harm? 

2. This is the first example in the US, that I am aware of, where Muslims exercised their perceived right to do as they wish to a woman or girl in their power. This is a right given them by Mohammed and is seen to be practiced in the UK and Europe quite extensively.