Eric Zuesse

German Economic News (Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten, or DWN) headlined on January 11th, “Security Situation in Germany Is Out of Control,” and reported: “The former chief of Austrian Constitutional Protection, Gert Polli, holds that a radical policy-change is essential for Germany regarding immigration. The new phenomena of mass crime can no longer be concealed from the public. The government requires the security apparatus to comply with this [concealment] policy.”

That report goes on to say:

To date, the federal government could largely rely on the media to ignore or belittle the refugee issue in its negative impact on the security situation in Germany. That’s over now. Even the mainstream media are gradually beginning to deal with this formerly taboo subject. It was no accident, but a common practice of the mainstream media, to largely ignore these and other crime phenomena [mainly robberies] that are associated with the current German refugee policy.

A January 11th DWN report had noted that the corporate-owned German Press Agency (DPA) “is responsible for 99 percent of all national media, the central source of information when it comes to the assessment of whether a local event has national significance. Reuters and the AFP are primarily economic and foreign agencies. Reuters rose to this topic for the first on Tuesday [January 5th]. AFP had done it on Monday [the 4th].” A police report from January 2nd, regarding the first criminal outburst, in Cologne on New Year’s Eve, December 31st, reported that “nearly 30 women” had been assaulted: “During New Year’s Day (January 1), the police in KÃ¶ln received information about various incidents in which women have been victims of assaults. On New Year’s Eve, criminal groups took advantage of the turmoil around the cathedral and committed several types of crime. The KÃ¶ln police have established an investigation team for these cases. … Several men surrounded them [the victims]. The size of the groups of offenders varied from two to three, according to witnesses, North African looking people, up to 20 of them. The suspects tried by deliberate touching of women to distract from the actual fact – the theft of valuables. In particular, wallets and mobile phones were stolen. In some cases, the men went further, however, and touched the women sexually.”

DWN, as the honest news-source it is, explored in that article the reason why the report on this matter by the DPA to the news-media had excluded mention of that police-report’s phrase “North African looking people.” DWN responded: “The reference to ‘North African looking’ needs to be interpreted by each editor who has basic humanistic education as being racist. … And, probably, that’s the reason the DPA decided not to accept this description in its agency report to the news-media.”

DWN asked DPA why “North African looking” wasn’t included, and DPA responded by noting the paragraph in the Press Code, which “states: in the reporting of crime, mention of the suspect’s religion, ethnicity, or other minority status, will be mentioned only if there is specific reason to do so, and only if due consideration is first given to the possibility that prejudice against minorities might be stirred up.”

DWN went on to criticize the popular German newspaper, Das Bild, that: “They headlined constantly ‘Sex Mob’, which suggests something other than violence of asylum seekers or refugees. On Monday [January 10th], the Cologne Police President finally announced that the perpetrators were men ‘appearing to be from the Arab or North African region’.” Yet, still, in “Hessen and North Rhine-Westphalia, the authorities seem to be under instruction to keep offenses by refugees under wraps.”

DWN urges that the German press ignore ethnicity or other such characterizations entirely in these reports, and focus instead on “asylum status,” so that the issue will be entirely Germany’s approach to the refugee-crisis, not at all on personal attributes or categories of refugees.

Later on January 11th, DWN bannered, “New Sexual Violence: Police Reports from 10 and 11 January,” and they noted that some of the reports were entirely unspecific about the attackers, but that in one case in Hamburg on January 7th:

“The suspect addressed the girl in the schoolyard. The conversation went pleasantly from the child’s point of view at first. They exchanged phone numbers. The suspect asked the girl, when he could see her again. She said that she had time on Friday at 14:00 clock in the same place. The girl was completely surprised that the stranger took her hand and kissed it. When asked where he lived because he answered that he lived in the central reception center, the girl wanted to leave, but he suddenly grabbed her waist and kissed her on the mouth. The girl then walked quickly away and told her mother of the experience. The mother informed the police, who in the course of extensive investigations found that it was a 23-year-old Somali housed as a refugee in a central reception center. The accused admitted the fact to the detectives, and was released after identification procedures and other police action, as no grounds for detention existed.” (Really?)

A homicide report on January 8th said: “Two Syrian brothers in Hanau are strongly suspected of having stabbed [to death] on the night of 7 to 8 January their sister who was pregnant.” The police report failed to indicate the asylum-status of anyone, but it did identify the suspects’ being a minority: “Syrian.” That characterization of them was exactly the opposite of the DPA’s Press-Code recommendation, that nationality “will be mentioned only if there is specific reason to do so …” The police report failed to indicate whether that family were refugees. So: DWN was there actually violating the DPA’s code, and also DWN’s own recommendation to focus on “asylum status,” not on nationality.

Other police reports included a Syrian who at the “central reception center in Hamburg-Meiendorf” was contemplating suicide because he saw no future for himself in Germany.

In another case: “A 35-year-old security guard prohibited a child from riding a scooter in the hall. This intervention by the security guard led two Syrians (45, 21) to insult and spit on him. The two Syrians demanded that more residents show solidarity against the guard. As the situation threatened to escalate, the guard called in the police. When the officers arrived, they were able to calm the situation. The two suspects were taken into custody. The 45-year-old Syrian was ill at police station (heart pain) and was driven by an ambulance to a hospital. The second was also released from police custody.” But, again: there was no indication as to whether those two Syrians were refugees, even though one might presume that they were.

In Lubeck on January 9th, a French Jew “was harassed by two refugees (30-year-old Syrian, 19-year-old Afghan). He was insulted in Arabic as “Ehud” (Jew) and torn to the ground in the waiting room. On the floor the victim was stepped on his hand and snatched a bag with cash, debit card, rail ticket and mobile.”

But many other cases didn’t indicate either nationality or refugee-status. At the present stage, there’s no way of knowing whether or not Germany’s open-asylum policy is causing a sharp upsurge in crime in Germany.

Is Germany ready for what seems likely to follow, if German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open-asylum policy continues?

All that’s really clear now is that, as DWN’s main headline on January 11th said: “Security Situation in Germany Is Out of Control.” And that’s bad enough, even now.

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.