TIGHTER SECURITY LOOMS IN COLOGNE FOR NEW YEAR’S EVE
City is still stinging from last year’s mass assaults and thefts
The attack on a Christmas market Dec. 19 has heightened already planned efforts by German authorities to step up security for Cologne’s annual New Year’s Eve celebration to avoid a repeat of the mass sexual assaults and thefts that marred last year’s festivities.
“We have had a difficult year behind us, and a great challenge lies ahead,” Cologne Police Chief Jürgen Mathies said. “The terror attack in Berlin has made it clear to us all that a real danger exists.”
Even before the truck rampage that killed 12 people and injured 48, Cologne Mayor Henriette Reker planned to deploy 1,500 police officers — more than 10 times last year’s number — and keep trained counselors on hand should any harassment arise.
The Tunisian national sought in connection with the truck attack was killed Friday in a shootout with police in Milan.
Mathies said police will carry machine guns on New Year’s Eve, an unusual sight in Germany. Truck barriers will go up where groups gather to watch fireworks.
Last year, men described by witnesses as “dark-skinned” foreigners allegedly raped, groped and robbed women during the festivities in the city center.
The incident became an international scandal and lightning rod for opponents of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open-door poli- cies that welcomed nearly 1 million migrants fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East, Africa and Asia in 2015.
Victims filed 1,222 criminal complaints, including 513 for sexual assault. Cologne residents are still shocked at how police allowed the rampage to go on and spoke of it publicly only days later.
“People in Cologne were really surprised by the events and often felt very unsafe afterward,” said Richard Meermann, 28, a development consultant who lives in downtown Cologne.
Last year, 140 officers were on duty, and police were caught off guard by criminal activity that erupted near the Cologne Cathedral and main train station.
Officials said this year will be different. “After the shocking attacks of last year’s New Year’s Eve, we, as the city of Cologne, have learned lessons that should ensure that Cologne can be experienced as it truly is: friendly, safe, happy and with a sense of community,” Reker said.
City officials banned firecrackers near the Gothic cathedral, added better lighting and increased security checkpoints.
Those precautions run counter to the city’s fun-loving, free-wheeling personality. Cologne’s Karneval — Germany’s equivalent to Mardi Gras — attracts more than 1 million costumed revelers from across Europe annually for a week before Lent.
“There’s hardly another city in Germany that stands for tolerance and openness like Cologne,” said Roger Böcking, 29, who is from neighboring Aachen and works in public relations. “The people here are warm and openminded — and very optimistic.”
That attitude has been put to the test by the mass violence a year ago. The Public Prosecutor’s Office opened 333 investigations, including 87 for sexual assault. Charges were brought against 35 people, primarily for theft. Of those, 24 have been convicted, and one was acquitted because of a lack of evidence.
Five of the 35 were charged with sexual assault. A 21-year-old Iraqi and 26-year-old Algerian were found guilty of sexual harassment in July and received one year of probation. Both had recently arrived in Germany, but officials declined to say whether they were seeking asylum.
Critics said so few people were charged with sexual assault because of Germany’s antiquated and sexist criminal laws, which require victims to prove they tried to resist for rape to be a punishable offense.
The German Women’s Council, an umbrella organization of women’s groups, said the legal fallout from Cologne shows it was “easier to prosecute the theft of a mobile phone than a grope at someone’s crotch.”
That outrage formed the backbone of a push for legal changes adopted this year, activists said.
“Many politicians saw after the events in Cologne that there was a problem of sexual violence in Germany,” said Katja Grieger of BFF, an association of women’s counseling and rape crisis centers in Berlin. “The new law penalizes sexual assaults when it’s clear they were against the victim’s will. Those who simply ignore a ‘No’ are making themselves liable now.”
Böcking doesn’t expect fears of terror or another case of mass violence to put a damper on this New Year’s Eve.
“Everyone in Cologne is looking forward to another (festival) to ring in 2017,” he said. “I am certain that we will all have a great time together.”
The legal fallout showed it was “easier to prosecute the theft of a mobile phone than a grope at someone’s crotch.” The German Women’s Council