Cardinal denounces Cologne cover-up

The Cologne cardinal who was one of the most enthusiastic supporters of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s “Open Door” immigration policy has written an open letter fiercely condemning the large-scale sexual violence at the station and in front of Cologne Cathedral on New Year’s Eve, and the subsequent attempted cover-up by the authorities.

On 22 January, a long list of well-known Cologne citizens, led by Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki and well-known German writer on Islam, Navid Kermani (born in Germany of Iranian parents), signed a “Letter from Cologne” accusing the state authorities and political leaders of deliberately concealing the immigrant origins of the gangs that harassed and assaulted women on New Year’s Eve. They also pointed out that uncontrolled immigration is unsustainable. More than 500 cases of sexual assaults and robbery were recorded in Cologne, with many more in other cities. All five of Cologne’s largest dailies published the letter on their front pages.

Under Chancellor Merkel’s policy more than one million Middle Eastern and North African refugees came to Germany last year. The signatories of the letter demand zero tolerance of sexual violence, an explanation of governmental failures on New Year’s Eve, far greater efforts to convey German values to Muslim refugees, especially regarding the equal rights of women, and a halt to gang crime.

On sexual violence the letter reads: “Sexual violence exists in most, if not all, societies and cultures. In Cologne on the night of New Year’s Eve, it was obviously carried out by young men of North African and Arab descent. Even if alcohol, drugs and cataclysmic group dynamics may have played a part, it would be blind to disregard the fact that this violence is based on a most perturbing image of women.
“Even before New Year’s Eve we knew that some men in certain milieus have a profound problem with [women’s] equality. We frequently come across this machismo in the milieus of people of Arab or Middle Eastern descent. We may – and indeed must – specify this if we want to ensure that women’s dignity is inviolable at all times and all places in our city.”

The signatories sharply criticise the security forces whose behaviour on New Year’s Eve has left them “stunned”. “The authorities initially concealed the origins of the culprits … This is an indication of incompetence – if not of malicious intent,” they say.

The letter affirms that not only individuals but societies and cultures can change and calls for greater efforts to convey European values, above all on the equality of women, to immigrants.

The signatories agree that uncontrolled immigration on the scale Germany has experienced since the autumn is unsustainable and call for a European solution to the refugee problem.

The Letter from Cologne has since been published in English but that translation is not always true to the original German.