FILE - In this Dec. 31, 2016 file photo numerous visitors stand in front of the stage at the Brandenburg Gate where the New Year's Eve party is taking place in Berlin, Germany. The head of a German police union DpolG Rainer Wendt is criticizing Saturday, Dec. 31, 2017, the creation of a special safe zone for women at the annual New Year's Eve party in front of Berlin's iconic Brandenburg Gate. (Jens Kalaene/dpa via AP, file)

BERLIN -- A German police union boss has criticized organizers of Berlin's annual open-air New Year's Eve party for designating a special "safety area" for women, saying it suggests they aren't safe from assault elsewhere.

The comments by Rainer Wendt, who heads the right-leaning German Police Trade Union, come during an ongoing debate in Germany about how to tackle an increase in sexual assaults.

Wendt told the Neue Osnabruecker Zeitung daily on Saturday that establishing such a safe zone sends a "devastating message."

"By doing so one is saying there are safe zones and unsafe zones" for women that could result in "the end of equality, freedom of movement and self-determination," the newspaper quoted him as saying.

Wendt said the move appeared to ignore the "political dimension" in Germany, two years after hundreds of women reported being assaulted or robbed during New Year's Eve celebrations in Cologne. The suspects in most of those assaults were migrants.

The number of rapes and sexual assaults recorded in Germany last year rose 12.8 percent compared with 2015, to 7,919 cases, an increase blamed on an influx of asylum seekers, many young and male. Statistics for 2017 aren't yet available.

Experts note that migrants in general aren't more likely to commit crimes than German citizens, but the proportion of crimes they commit may increase as they start to make up a larger share of the population.

The Cologne incident prompted a bill that makes it easier to prosecute sexual assaults and can see foreigners deported more easily if they are convicted of such crimes.

In Berlin, organizers of the free event that draws hundreds of thousands of revelers to the Brandenburg Gate each year said the "Women's Safety Area" was requested by Berlin police.

But a spokesman for the force said it merely suggested the safe zone after positive experiences at the Munich Oktoberfest, which has long been plagued by drink-fueled assaults.

"This is a good opportunity to offer women a place to retreat to if they feel harassed," Berlin police spokesman Valeska Jakubowski told The Associated Press. She stressed that the area won't be fenced off, as some media reports claimed, and that those seeking help will be assisted by Red Cross workers who are always at the event.

If women want to report a crime, officers would be available to take their statements, Jakubowski said. Last year, Berlin police recorded 14 sexual assaults at the event, including two involving rape or "serious duress."

A Section on 12/31/2017