A left-wing German politician has admitted she lied to police about the nationality of three men who raped her in case it triggered racism against migrants in her country.

Selin Gören, who is a spokeswoman for the left-wing youth movement Solid, was attacked in the city of Mannheim in January while working as a refugee activist. She was ambushed in a play area late at night and forced to perform a sex act on her attackers.

Although she went straight to the police after the attack, she did not report the ethnicity of the men, nor that they were speaking Arabic or Farsi.

Instead, she said the men spoke German and robbed her.

However, after her initial interview she went back to the police 12 hours later and told the truth.

She told the latest edition of Germany’s Spiegel magazine that, after the reaction to the Cologne sex attacks, she did not want to create “more hatred against migrants in Germany”.

She also wrote an open letter to a fictional migrant on Facebook, saying: “I am really sorry that your sexist and line-crossing treatment of me could help fuel aggressive racism.

“I’m going to scream… I will not stand by and watch, and it can happen that racists and concerned citizens name you as the problem. You’re not the problem. You’re usually a wonderful human being who deserves as much as any other to be safe and free.

“I will not stand by and watch and let it happen that racists and concerned citizens name you as the problem.”

A report by Germany’s Interior Ministry published in May showed that migrants in the country were committing a disproportionately high amount of crime.

The report found that 70 per cent of pickpocketing was committed by non-Germans since the start of 2014, with 34 per cent of this committed by recent asylum seekers.

Non-Germans also accounted for 40.2 per cent of burglaries and 43.5 per cent of shoplifting.

However, presenting the report to the press, Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière focussed on “politically-motivated crimes by the far-right”. This was despite these incidents being far less numerous than migrant crimes, and even less common than crimes by the far-left.

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