This is a short update to the diary What Happened in Köln (Cologne) on New Year’s Eve – and in Hamburg that I posted last night; if you’re not familiar with the events, that’s a place to start. This update draws on this article in SPIEGEL ONLINE.
There are now more than 150 complaints stemming from the events in Köln. According to police, three-quarters of them are for sexual harassment, and there are now two women who say that they were raped.
The Interior Minister of Nordrhein-Westfalen said this afternoon that three suspects have been identified, but no one has yet been taken into custody. This evening the Köln police issued a press release headed ‘Assaults on the station forecourt -- Four suspects identified’. Two were described as North Africans who were temporarily taken into custody on New Year’s Eve; they are said to have been picking pockets near the station. The other two have been in custody for three days and are said to have hassled women. The police would not say what concrete evidence they had that these men were involved in the assaults on women on New Year’s Eve; they said that doing so might compromise the investigation. Another police spokesman said there were altogether seven suspects.
The Köln public prosecutor’s office is taking seriously the possibility that organized crime was involved; there are indications pointing in that direction. At the same time, some of the eyewitness reports point to targeted humiliation of women. The fact is that the investigation is just beginning, and we really know almost nothing at this point about the culprits. Since witnesses have said that the men involved looked North African and/or Arab, many people, both in Germany and elsewhere (including here at Daily Kos, though a diary that was one of the worst examples has now been deleted), are jumping to conclusions that suit their prejudices. The conclusions may even be correct, but at this point they simply are not justified.
Similar New Year’s Eve events in Hamburg have so far led to 53 complaints, and the Frankfurt police are investigating a group of ten young men who are said to have attacked three women on New Year’s Eve in a manner similar to that used in Köln.