Timely and Inspiring Prophetic Analysis so you can Prepare.

More than 1000 young men took advantage of the New Year’s Eve street party near train stations from Hamburg to Frankfurt, Germany to assault young women. Gangs of men described by the authorities as having a “North African or Arabic” appearance, groped, raped and robbed scores of young women. They broke into groups and surrounded the women refusing to let them escape.

The atmosphere was aggressive and threatening. The gangs first threw firecrackers into the crowd in Cologne. Then when police broke up the crowd near the train station, they then attacked the women. The women screamed and tried to fight their way free.

The atmosphere in Hamburg was similar with 10 women reporting that they were sexually assaulted and robbed the same night.

A police officer in Cologne told Express.de on Thursday that 15 suspects from the New Year’s Eve attacks have been taken into custody; 14 came from Syria and 1 from Afghanistan. More than 1 million Middle Eastern refugees were recently allowed to come into Germany from the Middle East, but the event stoked tensions and concerns that the refugees are dangerous.

More than 600 complaints have been filed with police. The German news media first ignored the assaults for several days, fueling accusations that the authorities and the news media tried to cover up the attacks to avoid a backlash against the refugees.

But Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany said that the assaults were disgusting. “Everything must be done to investigate as completely and quickly as possible those who are guilty and to punish them regardless of how they look, where they come from or what their background is,” Merkel said. The angry, even livid public reaction presents new difficulties for Merkel. Protests were organized in front of Cologne’s cathedral to protest the violence against women. Some said the authorities have not taken the allegations of sexual abuse of women seriously enough.

“The government’s loss of control is not only taking place on the borders,” Alexander Marguier, deputy editor in chief of the monthly political magazine Cicero, wrote online. “For whoever gives up control of who enters the country no longer has control over the consequences of this action.”

The violent crimes committed by the gangs were so many and so overwhelming that police did not have enough personnel on hand and could not handle them all. Police cleared the square around the station after the drunken assailants threw firecrackers into the crowd. But the gangs then blended into the crowd. That’s when the sexual assaults began. Many girls were force to “run the gauntlet” in which men touched them and assaulted them.

“Nobody knew where to go,” Sascha Frohn, who said he was in the [Cologne] station on Thursday. “We stood with our backs to the wall and could see how people were robbed and German girls were groped. I was surrounded by a group of 50 to 60 people from Arabic countries. They would come up to us, shake hands and then try to reach into our bags.”

German officials reacted to the heated rhetoric and outrage by calling for a crackdown on hate speech. They have entered agreements with in collaboration with Google, Facebook and Twitter to control internet speech. Richard Allan, Facebook’s vice president told the Washington Post, “Our German reviewers are reviewing the meanings of German words and trying to understand what language crosses the line.”

“I was shown the state of the world that it is fast filling up its cup of iniquity. Violence and crime of every description are filling our world, and Satan is using every means to make crime and debasing vice popular.” Testimonies for the Church, Vol. 3, page 471

Source Reference

• Scale of Cologne New Year attacks grows as more than 600 complaints filed

• Reports of Attacks on Women in Germany Heighten Tension Over Migrants

• GERMAN ELITES TARGET ‘HATE SPEECH’ AFTER MIGRANT RAPE SPREE

• Germany springs to action over hate speech against migrants