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Lead content

"Some media outlets reported that up to 1,000 men may have been involved in the Cologne attacks[13] but Police reported that victims were only assaulted by small groups of, at most, several dozen individuals. Although only slightly over 100 persons claimed to have been victims of the attacks in the days following the events, that number swelled to more than 1,000 alleged victims following reports in media." - there are several problems here. There is editorializing - by the use of that linking word "but", the text is making an unsourced and thus unjustified connection between two things: the content with the number reported in media outlets and the content about what the police say. It also has the implication, again unsourced, that they contradict each other and that one is wrong, thanks to wording like "only assaulted by", when actually they are saying different things that do not necessarily contradict. These two bits of content need to be in separate sentences. The editorializing get even worse in the following sentence - there is a clear implication in the current wording that the alleged victims came forward only because of media reports, will I think a little-disguised undertext that this means that they are not genuine. I suggest altering it to "Some media outlets reported that up to 1,000 men may have been involved in the Cologne attacks[13]. Police reported that victims were assaulted by groups of, at most, several dozen individuals. Slightly over 100 persons initially claimed to have been victims of the attacks; in the days following the events that number swelled to more than 1,000 alleged victims." I think that "initially" needs to be more specific - does in mean within 12 hours, within 24 hours? Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 22:32, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

I saw the same problem and reworked it a bit to avoid the editorializing connections. Please feel free to comment.--Gerry1214 (talk) 01:18, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
It reads better now, thanks. But I think for the "swelled to more than 1,900" wording to make sense it needs additional info that will say what that 1,900 number swelled from (i.e., from the initial number of victims coming forward). Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 03:16, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

This entire piece - from the misleading title to the discredited material offered as 'facts' - is designed to spread racism and hate against refugees. Dishonest editors with a far right agenda simply stick down material which has been entirely discredited. They ignore the involvement of German nationals in the alleged assaults, and fail to make clear that there is hardly any evidence at all for sexual assaults, beyond anecdotal ones (CCTV and phone pictures reveal nothing except for a few minor thefts - hence the handful of minor convictions, which have been conveniently ignored in this piece) Those who produce these kind of propaganda pages for Wikipedia discredit the site, and actually harm their own extremist cause because sensible, educated readers can see exactly what they are doing. Intelligent, moderate readers should compare this dishonest, exaggerated, extremist Wikipedia entry with the latest facts: [n 1] — Preceding unsigned comment added by Calcoform (talk • contribs) 22:12, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

You clearly have an axe to grind, Frau Merkel Calcoform. Let's take your first edit. You change "reported" (a factual word) to "alleged", paving the way for your denialist agenda. You claim no video or picture exists (not in source, and not a prequisite for a crime having occurred or not. You add "there was claims" around the North African suspects, but not to the "White Germans", whose existence is not noted in the source (only a minority of them were German citizens, and not all Germans are white, come one, it's 2016). So which one is it? It never happened, or it was whitey's fault? You then put a large quote from Ralf Jager that agrees with your point of view, you assign that all who disagree with you are Pegida or AfD, and then you mention the opinion of Henriette Reker as if she is the alpha and the omega on the whole case. Second edit: You provide no evidence that Bremer is not saying the truth, apart from it being what you'd like to hear. Then you stick Jager's quote in the most awkward position at the top of the article. There are hundreds of views in the reaction section, but you just choose the one which is in line with your opinion. '''tAD''' (talk) 22:31, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
Your source says video was not good enough, rather than non-existent. Your source mentions the legal proceedings against people, including asylum seekers, from North Africa. And what is the first line? "Most of the men who sexually assaulted women in Cologne on New Year's Eve may never be caught". Gee whillickers, Jack the Ripper was never caught, those London prostitutes just made it up to spread hatred against Rippers. '''tAD''' (talk) 22:36, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
From your source: "About 1,000 men of North African and Arab origin gathered near Cologne's main station on 31 December. Smaller groups formed, first surrounding women and then threatening and attacking them, the report said." The vast majority of reliable sources say essentially the same thing. Faceless Enemy (talk) 01:26, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
I was trying to get to sleep before this unpleasant episode, so I didn't read the source in much detail. What irony that the WP:TRUTH according to this magic source is exactly what our article already says, and the opposite of what Calcoform is trying to point out! Nobody in their right mind would rework the lead on Armenian Genocide to a fringe denialist POV, and it's just as tendentious here. I will keep an eye on this page for further mischief. Lord knows what makes a person want to do such editing. '''tAD''' (talk) 06:15, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

References (Edited to group refs with section) Mathglot (talk) 21:10, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

  1. ^ http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35647308

It´s true, this whole article is like right wing propanda, for example "up to 1,000 men may have been involved" is totally bullshit. The place were this happened is crowded every new years eve with many people from the city, country and world. "up to 1,000 men" is a fantasy number, spread by right wing tabloids and people. newspapers as a source is also problematic, cause many of them had/have their own agenda in this story. (especially conservative papers like welt, bild and faz). I am from Germany and i am shocked with regard to the bullshit about refugees spread in usa/britain. Englisch speaking Wikipedia, Youtube, etc is like a parallel world in this topic (not only cologne, but the whole refugees in germany thing). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.222.54.212 (talk) 11:24, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

Well, I'm from Germany too and I am not really astonished about a few left wing commentators here, as there are many parallel worlds not only in right wing, but also in left wing thinking, or more leftist media (Die Zeit, Der Spiegel, Süddeutsche..., all of which are used here as sources, too, by the way). From the beginning of January onward, most comments seem to be made by people who have in fact no constructive suggestions to improve the article, but just want to express that they dislike the facts and figures provided by the sources. So nothing new at all.--Gerry1214 (talk) 14:00, 2 July 2016 (UTC)
Gerry1214 Spot on. I am glad that Calcoform has given up now, who with one post would say that it was "white people" who did it (assuming so because some of the suspects had German citizenship, which since the 1940s has not been the exclusive realm of white people, nor do I believe that term has any legal basis in Germany as it does in the US), and with his next edit would say that it never happened because some suspects had not been arrested (I used the example of Jack the Ripper to show that is a fallacy). Worse still, the sources he was using for the illusive WP:TRUTH (not in the article, just on the talk page, he never put a source on the article) didn't add up to his conspiracy theory, and instead said that there were perpetrators of a Middle Eastern appearance who had escaped capture. On other articles where people deny things just because of their own gut feelings and dogma (such as Northern Ireland, Israel/Palestine, Balkan War, Gamergate) I see there are one-revert-rules, sanctions for biased editors and even the need to have an account to use the talk page. Although things have relatively cooled down here, if things fire up again that should be considered. '''tAD''' (talk) 13:54, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

"exclusive realm of white people, nor do I believe that term has any legal basis in Germany as it does in the US" Can you tell me how the term "white people" has legal basis in the US? I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at or what you are saying. Please, enlighten me (us). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.138.95.121 (talk) 05:34, 17 September 2016 (UTC) Here:https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/White_Americans

See also section

Many of the links of the see also section link to pretty much unrelated events and should be removed. Examples are:

  • Rotherham child sexual exploitation scandal
  • Criminal case of Lisa F.
  • Murder of Niklas P.
  • Murder of Maria Ladenburger
  • 2015 New Year's attack plots (only relation is the date)

LucLeTruc (talk) 18:54, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Some of these events are clearly linked. [1] (Link to Murder of Maria Ladenburger) [2] (Link to case of Niklas P.) [3] (Link to case of Lisa F.) [4] (Link to Rotherham) --Gerry1214 (talk) 19:16, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
A collection of newspaper articles merely mentioning both incidents does not merit any mentioning of these unrelated events under "see also".LucLeTruc (talk) 20:38, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

mass sexual harassment in north africa

@Minorities observer: Nobody should prove here anything. Your sentence (part), however, editorialized the content. Without a WP:RS for such a claim this is original research (WP:OR) which should be avoided in the Wikipedia. Greetings, LucLeTruc (talk) 12:19, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

The BKA (German FBI/Scotland Yard) report (larger excerpts in Die Zeit on 7 June 2016)states clearly
1) "In Deutschland hat es Sexualdelikte aus Personengruppen heraus so noch nicht gegeben; allerdings sei das Vorgehen in nordafrikanischen und asiatischen Ländern „stark verbreitet“ und stelle eine „Form der Alltagsgewalt gegen Frauen“ dar."
2) "Demnach gibt es große Ähnlichkeiten zur Praxis „taharrush gamea“ oder „taharrusch dschama’i“ in Ägypten und dem „Eve teasing“ in Indien, Pakistan und Bangladesch."
This means that the practice of group sexual offenses (thus not "gang rape") is indeed "very widespread" in North African and Asiatic countries, but that the specific phenomenon of taharrush gamea is only related to Egypt, and that a similar phenomenon is called Eve teasing in South Asia. --Minorities observer (talk) 01:48, 1 January 2017 (UTC)
Thanks. My comment was, however, referring to your earlier inclusion, that taharrush gamea is not observed in the country of origin of the suspects which you did not source at that time. I added this as an explanation for my deletion of this sentence. I am totally fine with the current state of the article. LucLeTruc (talk) 02:10, 1 January 2017 (UTC)
@Minorities observer and Asarlaí: Lets find a good solution for this taharrusch dschama’i topic. I agree with Minorities observer that this term very specificly relates to events in Egypt. The sources, however, say that it is known in "some" Arab countries. So either writing that it is known from Egypt (what all sources say) or from "some Arab countries" would both be reasonably close to the sources. The comparison, however, is quiet contestet (see the taharrusch dschama’i article). As virtually no perpetrator from Egypt was involved, how should the two things be related? Because muslims were involved? You see, the aspect is much more complicated. The German BKA is in my eyes not the best source for precise information about Arab countries. There are far better analysis of this from sociologists and journalists on this topic (see some in the taharrusch dschama’i article).
So, my suggestion: As of now, taharrusch dschama’i is mentiond twice in the lead and once in the article. For such a contested interpretation, mentioning it twice in the lead is far too much. I would describe it only once with a link in the body and use the term "mass sexual assault" with a reference to the Arab world in the lead as we all seem to agree that there were several instances of mass sexual assault in the Arab world (but not exclusively so as the Indian example shows) and this cologne event most probably was one of the most reported mass sexual assault events ever.LucLeTruc (talk) 15:37, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

Police criticism

There is quiet a long paragraph about criticism of police work which is not related to the case here (mostly earlier events and in different places) which does not belong in this article here (no WP:COATRACKing!): 

In the aftermath of the events, cases became known in several German federal states, where the media or authorities withheld information about the criminality of certain migrants or were instructed to do so[citation needed]. In the state of Thuringia, there were allegations by the police union Gewerkschaft der Polizei about an order not to create press releases about incidences in refugee shelters without effects on the surroundings. State prime minister Bodo Ramelow (Die Linke) denied the allegations.[216] In the state of Hesse, the interior minister Peter Beuth (CDU) came under pressure, as the tabloid Bild reported that confidential documents of the State Office of Criminal Investigation ("Landeskriminalamt", LKA) showed that the police had not reported on relevant offenses of refugees.[217][218] Furthermore, there were media reports that in the city of Kiel, Schleswig-Holstein, there was an internal agreement between police and the prosecutor's office not to punish "small offences" by migrants, because the effort of identifying the offenders was "too high". After opposition faction leader Wolfgang Kubicki (FDP) had strongly criticised that, Torsten Albig (SPD), prime minister of Schleswig-Holstein, stated, "There can not be two kinds of justice."[219] Also, the regional chief of the newspaper Kieler Nachrichten revealed that he had been asked by the state police to refrain from reporting on specific refugee issues; this action was also sharply criticised by Kubicki.[216]

Any objections to removing this? There has been quiet some criticism about the police in Cologne which would be relevant for this article and which should be added, but the stuff above is not related to the lemma. LucLeTruc (talk) 00:47, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Numbers

As has been noted frequently in the edits history, the statistics on this page about the number of sexual assaults, rapes, thefts, etc. are confusing. I think that's mostly because there isn't a consensus on the statistics. And I think that lack of consensus reflects the heavily politicized, haphazard way that the statistics have been reported thus far by the German government and the news media. One of the most recent sources for statistics on the page, the 11 July article by the Washington Post, reports that the document in question was "leaked," which again highlights the difficulty of finding reliable numbers. IMHO the best way to maintain the quality of the page is to avoid a tone that suggests that the facts are settled. Neutral tone should be reserved for the most basic information, and when we specify statistics, we should foreground the source, and highlight the obscure and contested nature of some key facts. The page will probably look very different a year from now, after new info comes to light and investigations are completed. J.jesse.ramírez (talk) 11:32, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

There is an ongoing parliamentary investigation into the whole thing and the German BKA has made an internal report summarising all crimes which was "leaked" in July 2015 but pretty much reported by every respected German newspaper (thats were the 2000 involved perpetrators and 1200 criminal cases number comes from). Maybe in the future there will be better (scientific) sources for this (or the report itself, but this is not the US, so it may stay internal) but this report is a far better source than all the other statistics and counts from January and February 2016 which are included in the articl. I would propose to only use the numbers from the BKA report (especially in the lead) and remove all the preliminary statistics and much off the listings of individual cases in "Suspects and detainees". The relevant stuff here are the numbers and some general findings (i.e. the discussion about the majority of the perpetrators coming from North African countries) and the BKA report describes all this. LucLeTruc (talk) 15:26, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Date in title

Should this be 2015/16 New Year's Eve sexual assaults in Germany? E.M.Gregory (talk) 10:59, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

It seems OK to me. It won't be confused, so far at least and hopefully, with any other article of the same or similar name. Swliv (talk) 21:04, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

reference 38 broken

Reference 38 on this page leads to the yahoo splash page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.172.20.136 (talk) 14:04, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

2017: Critical Review

It's 2017 and we have the hindsight for critical analysis. A greater critical eye on this article is the work of a German journalist, but I will make my contribution as Swedish. Why a critical review? I argue the following: As we all know, no one is guilty until convicted. According to this Wikipedia entry, “New Year's Eve [MASS] sexual assaults [BY XENOS] in Germany”, 2,000+ crimes were committed by 2,000+ men against 1,200+ women… I’m strongly sceptical about it.


We will begin by critically reviewing the mass sexual assaults by xenos, as the event came to be known as while circulating the world, by analysing the relevant figures: crimes, men, women.


The abstract contains no crime figure. The infobox mentions “Nearly 2,300 sexual assaults and robberies reported”. However, this figure appears to be original research. It’s unsourced, following sources don’t mention it, and the subfigures do not add up to it. The subfigures say “1,616”, “296”, “236”, “More in other cities”, and “A total of 1,950+ victims”. I will cover the subfigures one by one. The “1,616” in Cologne refers to all crime of any kind, with only 509 sex crimes. Out of the “296” in Düsseldorf, again referring to all crime, only 103 were sex crimes. The “236” in Hamburg is without any source. I didn’t further review “More in other cities” as it doesn’t present any specific total figure. Already, 2,148 crimes are only really 612 crimes. The final figure was “1,950+ victims”, the women. Again, this figure appears to be original research. Again, unsourced, following sources don’t mention it, and the sources do not add up to it. Out of the five sources given, the highest figures to appear are 1,216 victims of all crime and only 497 victims of sex crimes. Again, 1,950+ victims are only really 497 victims. Finally, we have the men. Across the entire article, 4 convictions of all crime are mentioned and zero convictions of sex crimes are mentioned. Both the 2,000+ men figure in the abstract and infobox and the 1,200+ women figure in the abstract originate with the same unverifiable source. Other sources mention at least 140 men suspect of sex crimes, but zero sex crime convictions.


I’m strongly sceptical about it. Clearly basic analysis shows 2000 crimes, 2000 men, and 1200 women are really 612 crimes, zero men (depending on how hard evidence you want), and 497 women.


Finally, I will criticize §4.2.1 “Sweden” and §4.2 “Other countries”, which appear under §4 “Similar incidents”.


In §4.2.1 “Sweden”, Kalmar, Karlstad, and Malmö appear. I will change this text and add sources to strengthen the facts: the events in Malmö and Karlstad never occurred and in Kalmar three relevant reports were apparently made, but even this is incomparable to Germany and no “Similar incident”. The exact same conclusion applies to Helsinki, appearing in §4.2, where two relevant reports were made. Also, appearing in §4.2 are Austria, Finland, and Switzerland, attributed to an Australian news source, which is clearly only a publicity piece with assorted and vague allegations, which I will delete imminently. All other above events will remain in abridged form, but only as to not be immediately added again, with fewer facts, by someone else.


However, all other events in §4.2.1 “Sweden” will be deleted. Different Swedish summer festivals in 2014, 2015, and 2016, and a Swedish sport tournament in July of 2016 appear and here the entry has transcended space and time to become wholly unrelated to “New Year's Eve sexual assaults in Germany”, with only the weakest connections made. We are outside the scope of the article.


Conclusively, I will attempt to correct figures appearing in the abstract, infobox, and will delete §4.2.1 “Sweden”, merging all relevant contact with §4.2. “Other countries”, which I will also modify for accuracy.


Clarification: I’m strongly sceptical about the scope of the events in the entry. After a year, I advocate anyone to critically analyse the relevant facts and the chaotic and contradictory authority and media reports shortly after New Year’s Day 2015/2016. False reports of the “rapefugee” appeared already in January 2016 and are still appearing in 2017, while zero rape convictions and not even two dozen rape reports are strengthened by this entry. It is conceivable to me that the entire event was merely an ordinary New Year’s Day. Chaotic authority and media reports, policemen speaking out of order, and fascist propaganda may have made this event into something it never really was. I’ve only analysed a fraction, yet all apparent facts have crumbled after only the weakest analysis.


If anyone have more facts, add them ASAP. Asneaky (talk) 07:40, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

There is an issue with coatracking unrelated stories here, that is for sure Valentina Cardoso (talk) 14:39, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

Scope of the article

According to the lemma, this article is about sexual assaults in Germany on new years eve in Germany. I agree with the rationale to include events where similar crimes happened elsewhere and at another time under similar circumstances (i.e. public event, group of perpetrators, sexual assaults in combination with theft) but this article includes information about events that do not fall into this category at all and which, hence, should be removed:

  • public swimming pool incidents
  • rape case in Vienna
  • sexual assaults in clubs in Freiburg
  • Gothia cup incedent
  • possibly some more that I did not spot while scanning the article

The only similarity here mostly is that the perpetrators were foreigners and the victims Germans (or Austrians, Swedish). The debate about this subject shows that for many people this percieved "similarity" plays quiet a role but Wikipedia is not the place for such assumptions. Any objections for removing these unrelated events? LucLeTruc (talk) 16:13, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

The similarity is group assaults on women, specifically groups of foreigners from certain parts of the world, ganging up on women in crowds. The Gothia Cup incident fits this description. AadaamS (talk) 08:20, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
I agree. Any event that is not an example of MASS sexual assault commited by XENOS (defined foreigners, immigrants, refugees, newly arrived, Middle Easterners, Muslims, etc.) is irrelevant. Also, events that are distant in both space and time are irrelevant. Asneaky (talk) 09:02, 18 February 2017 (UTC)
So why should the mass/gang rape in Vienna (middle European large city) be out of scope? A 28-year old German (young women, Western looks) displaced near a NYE-party-location at around 3-4 am, Jan. 1st 2016 by 4 iraqi refugees in order to rape her with 4-5 more friends/family members. All 9 iraqi refugees arrived 2015, 8 are convicted at first instance. BBC, Telegraph, Washington Post, all big German/Austrian newspapers (except Die Zeit), etc. were reporting. (not only) A lawyer of the convicts blamed the sentence of 90 years for being politically motivated related to the NYE's events in Cologne and other cities.Gepresst (talk) 09:44, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Requested move 8 January 2018

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Not done (non-admin closure)  samee  talk 12:59, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

New Year's Eve sexual assaults in Germany → Alleged 2015/2016 New Year's Eve sexual assaults in Germany – The date should be added for clarity since as the first sentence makes clear it is 2015/2016 New Year's Eve under discussion in the article. The word "alleged" should be added in keeping with Wikipedia policy regarding non-judgmental descriptive titles, which says that though "alleged" should be avoided in general use, there is an exception that applies in this case. "(Exception: articles where the topic is an actual accusation of illegality under law, discussed as such by reliable sources even if not yet proven in a court of law. These are appropriately described as "allegations".) Lee1999 (talk) 07:21, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Reporting on these claims routinely uses "allegedly," "reportedly," etc., as in proper journalism. I simply think this article should do the same (and if other Wikipedia articles fail to meet the requirements for neutrality they should be altered as well). Two years on and there has been very little followup or outcome, leaving this all looking increasingly dubious (as anything beyond the usual Oktoberfest/New Year's Eve/[insert drunken crowd scene of your choice here] mess). And as a woman who has been assaulted herself (though I don't tweet), I can say that the point of #MeToo is to call out a culture of institutionalized male power, not to scapegoat another vulnerable group. #MeToo accusations are made openly and transparently, giving those accused the right to contest the accusations and follow due process if they so choose. Finally, yes, certainly, women do lie about these matters, as we saw last year in Frankfurt--is anyone suggesting that "Irina A." did not lie (or that newspapers all over the world did not leap to pick up such an "irresistible" story)? Women are not sacred angels to be protected but human beings who are just as capable of lying and injustice as anyone else when it suits a political or personal agenda. And, as many women have said, whatever they have reported has simply been taken out of their hands and turned into a political issue about ethnicity and immigration, which is not what they care about. After all, the image created in this article of scenes in which every woman was German and every man was not is a bit implausible.Lee1999 (talk) 06:05, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

It is put clearly in the article that Germany's antiquated laws on sexual assault are the reason for a lack of convictions. [5] Anarcho-authoritarian (talk) 03:51, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
I see. So (a) the acts committed by whomever on New Year's Eve 2015 were not in fact crimes at the time. And (b) such acts only became crimes after the fact when suspected of being committed by non-German men.Lee1999 (talk) 04:53, 13 January 2018 (UTC)
  • Support I think the dates at the very least should be added. Without them the title suggests that these were recent or that they happen every year. The German-language article has the dates.CDT2021 (talk) 03:53, 13 January 2018 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

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Use of Bild as a source

Bild is clearly not a reliable source. It's the equivalent of the UK tabloid, The Sun, which we would never use as a source in this encyclopedia. Please find an alternative. Deb (talk) 09:28, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Organizing the article

I've (re)organized the article, around relevant topics and issues that speak for themselves and that already generated many bits of information scattered through the whole article however not yet orderly collected and structured in main sections. The infobox has been updated and cut back to the most essential main points, further details now easily to be found in the clear new structured sections. --Corriebertus (talk) 10:48, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

You've utterly re-written and re-ordered the whole article from top to bottom without any discussion first. And you've made all the changes in one big edit, instead of multiple smaller edits, which means we can't see exactly what's been changed. That's not how things should be done on Wikipedia.
I don't have the time right now to look at all the changes. Some of them look fine, but the changes to the lead weren't an improvement, so I've undone them. It didn't conform to Wikipedia guidelines. A lot of key details were removed, a lot of needless detail was added (such as separate descriptions of perpetrators in each city), much of the wording wasn't in plain English, and it was written in chronological order with bullet points.
If any other editors have the time, could they please take a look at the rest of the article? ~Asarlaí 12:27, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

Updates in thematical sections

§1.1: Some extra ref sources and some longer citations.


§3: Re-organizing previous §3.3 (criticism on media) and splitting it up into new §3.1 (belated media reports etc.) and new §3.2 (public anger at media etc.); meanwhile correcting the accusations by The Local and by Hans-Peter Friedrich towards 'the media' that were until today wrongly summarized; and adding some ref sources and extended citations. Previous §3.2 (now replaced as §3.3) slightly edited. Old §3.1 now merged into the new §3.1, §3.2 and §3.3.


§5: Adding: All witnesses in Cologne until 4 Jan 2016 had described the assaulters as 'north African or Arab', sources said.


§6: Added info from the BKA report of June 2016.


§9.5: Correcting the header: there's no certainty that those attacked people were migrants, we only know they were foreigners.


§10.4: Adding:
-- Cologne, 21 Jan. 2016: the 30 identified suspects were not member of a known pickpocketing gang;
-- Cologne, June 2016: more information about the BKA report;
-- Frankfurt, Hamburg, Stuttgart and Dortmund: added numbers of identified suspects. --Corriebertus (talk) 21:23, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

Some improvements in the lead section

The lead section seemed to contain some incorrect or unsourced statements, some unbalancing statements or paragraphs, redundancy, and less relevant aspects, while some major aspects seemed underexposed. I hope to have remedied those flaws, in my edit today. In this talk section, I'll explain and motivate every change in the lead that I've made, in full detail, paragraph by paragraph, numbering the seven paragraphs of the old lead section from top to bottom as A until G. I suggest, that in these discussions we bear in mind the directions given on Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section such as: a lead section should preferably be a "short, but useful and complete, summary" of the topic, "a summary of the article's most important contents", with a "neutral point of view" (in four paragraphs or less). --Corriebertus (talk) 21:25, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

Old lead paragraph A

Sentence one, "there were mass sexual assaults": that assertion was not backed by sources. What we do know, and can say in the lead section (and comes nearer the essence of this Wikipedia article) is that some 1,250 women have reported to have been sexually assaulted that night (see §1 in the article), often by groups. In some of those cases, the assault indeed has been judged a fact, by a criminal court. It is however not the fact of several proven sexual assaults that made this event of encyclopedic importance: sexual assaults unfortunately happen quite often in a large country like Germany. It is the high number of reported assaults, in combination with the ethnic aspect of the suspects, that made this an event of encyclopedic importance, as of 4 January 2016; therefore those two facts (high numbers and ethnicity) need to be mentioned in the opening sentence.
"24 alleged rapes": correct.
Therefore, I propose as lead sentence:
During the 2015–16 public New Year's Eve's celebrations in Germany, over 1,250 women in at least twelve cities reportedly have been sexually assaulted with 24 of them raped, in most cases by men with non-European background.
"Thefts": The thefts are mentioned in our sections §1.1, 1.3, 2.1 and 2.2 but while they are not the core business of this article and a lead section needs to be "short" and include only the "most important contents" of an article, they need not be repeated in the lead section.

Sentence two (similar…Hamburg…): was misleading since there were not only those six cities besides Cologne, they were at least eleven cities besides Cologne (see §1 in the article and also the Infobox).

Sentence three, "in groups": correct.
"Police estimated… 1,200 women were sexually assaulted…": incorrect citation. The Federal Criminal Police (Bundeskriminalamt) (see ref source 1 in the article, SZ 10July2016) did not estimate those 1,200 women but stated them as fact.
Therefore, I propose as lead paragraph:
During the 2015–16 public New Year's Eve's celebrations in Germany, over 1,250 women in at least twelve cities reportedly have been sexually assaulted with 24 of them raped, in most cases by men with non-European background. In many of the incidents, women out in the street had been surrounded and assaulted by groups of men. The Bundeskriminalamt (German Federal Criminal Police) has in July 2016 declared it a fact that 1,200 had been sexually assaulted on that New Year's night.
Also in sentence three, "estimated…2,000 men..involved": correct; I've moved this fact to paragraph 4 in the lead section where characteristics of the identified suspects are collected. --Corriebertus (talk) 21:25, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

Old lead paragraph B

First sentence (‘women surrounded and assaulted by groups’): correct.
Sentence two ('Arab or North African appearance…'): that assertion was correct, but was confined to Cologne though a similar assertion can and should be made about all involved cities. Therefore, I suggest to expand the assertion like this:
As of 4 January 2016, the German national media followed by international media reported that in Cologne – as later appeared to hold for all affected cities – the sexual assaulters had mostly been described as 'north African' or 'Arab' or 'dark skinned' or 'foreign'.

Sentences 3 and 4: "International outcry": too vague. "...About women's rights": vague, unsourced. "…Sustainability of .. asylum policy": unsourced. "…Sexism against women by…": unsourced. 'Hardening attitudes on migration': too vague.
While these third and fourth sentences presumably aimed to summarize the public debates that were evoked or intensified by the NYE sexual assaults, it would be more balanced, in reference to our thematical sections 3, 6, 8.2, 8.5, 8.7, 8.8, 8.10, 8.11 and 8.15, to say in the lead section:
[After the assaults had become public,] public debates arose or were invigorated about the possible role of "refugees" in these assaults, about closing the German borders for further generous immigration, securing the 'Schengen' borders against unchecked immigration, debates about Islam and Muslims, violence against women, police vigilance, racism, Germany's failure to integrate the thousands of young immigrated men, and about media and authorities trying to cover-up such crimes of immigrants.

Also in sentence 4, 'attacks on migrants': incorrect citation, we don't know if they were migrants, we just know they were foreigners (see our article's section 9.5). Anyway: while we found at least 30 sorts of reactions and responses on the NYE assaults (see the article’s sections 3,4,6,8,9), can't spell them all out in the lead section for reasons of necessary shortness and shouldn't pick just one or two or three of them for the lead to avoid bias, I think (see also my arguing below, under 'Old lead paragraph E, sentence 4, Albers') we'd better confine ourselves in the lead section to the most important ten evoked public debates as listed in my previous paragraph in this talk section's posting. --Corriebertus (talk) 21:25, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

Old lead paragraph C

Sentence 1 ("small number…"): vague and suggestive. More definite numbers are perhaps still missing, but looking at our information in §10.4(Identified suspects) we can give this rough estimate:
By November 2016, nationwide around 200 suspects of the sexual assaults, on a total of 2,000 presumed perpetrators, had been identified.

Sentence 2 ("153 suspects"): incorrect, they were not all suspected of sexual assault but of various offences.

Sentences 3–5: these assertions made no distinction between sexual and other offences, where they should do so. Correcter presentation would be:
By April 2016, two-thirds of the 153 identified suspects in Cologne of various (not all sexual) crimes in the New Year's Eve were originally from Morocco or Algeria, 44% were asylum seekers, another 12% were probably illegally in Germany, 3% were underaged unaccompanied refugees.

Sentence 6: those assertions were not precise enough and not all correct. Better is:
By July 2016, the police stated that half of the 120 identified suspects nationwide of sexual offences on the New Year's Eve had arrived in Germany during the year 2015, most of those 120 had come from North Africa, and four suspects nationwide of those sexual offences had been convicted. --Corriebertus (talk) 21:25, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

Old lead paragraph D

Whereas the lead should be kept short, but clear and useful, confined to the most important issues, I summarized the issues of old paragraph D ('assaults organized'? 'familiar behaviour in some countries'?) now shorter, while more clearly saying who raised the speculation and who dismissed it:
On 5 January 2016, the German government and the Cologne police speculated that the attacks might have been organized. But by 21 January 2016, the North Rhine-Westphalian government declared that there were no indications of premeditated organized attacks, and on 11 February the new Cologne police president stated the same. In stead, the Cologne police chief now suggested that the perpetrators had come from countries where such sexual assaults by groups of men are rather common.
A more detailed presentation of these issues is given in §4(were the assaults organized?) and §7(speculations about causes of the assaults) in the article.
The remark about 'not pickpocketing gangs' concerned only 30 Cologne suspects, is therefore not essential for the lead section: I've moved it (in a previous edit, today) to §10.4-Cologne. --Corriebertus (talk) 21:25, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

Old lead paragraph E

Three connected assertions in sentences 1 and 2 ("…assaults were not reported..for days … started reporting it..after a wave of anger ... claims..cover up crimes") plus assertion (“delayed media reaction”) in sentence 5:
It was no correct fact to write in the lead that the Cologne assaults "were not reported…for days" by the national media. The assaults were reported as of 1 January in local media and as of 2 January in national media, as is and was described in our section 1.1 (even before some changes there earlier today). But the shortcoming of those early media reports, which caused the anger and suspicions of a cover-up among the public and on Twitter, was that they omitted reporting the ethnicity of the offenders. It was only on 4 January 2016 that the national media started to report that ethnicity of offenders, which started off the enormous public attention for the event, making it of encyclopedic relevance. Summarizing that corrected information we could say in the lead secton:
As of 4 January 2016, the German national media followed by international media reported that the sexual assaulters had mostly been described as 'north African' or 'Arab' (…) and public debates arose about media and authorities trying to cover-up such crimes by immigrants.

Another assertion in that first sentence of old lead paragraph E ("The Local says… started reporting it [= the Cologne assaults] after a wave of anger…"):
was also incorrect (and was also stated incorrectly until today in old section 3.3, where I've corrected it earlier today). What The Local actually did write on 5 January 2016, was that the national media had until 4 January omitted mentioning that the assaulters were "apparently of north African descent" and had started reporting that after a wave of anger. The media had not concealed the attacks-as-such (see §1.1), and The Local (quite logically) did not make that incorrect accusation. This corrected information about The Local is now included in new §3.2, correct information about the media quite late reporting the ethnicity of assaulters is now presented in the lead with:
As of 4 January 2016, the German national media followed by international media reported that (…) the sexual assaulters had mostly been described as 'north African' or 'Arab' or 'dark skinned' or 'foreign' (…)

Sentence 3 ("Cologne Mayor Henriette Reker…"):
Reker's disputed remark is fully presented in our §8.4 (as one of seventeen reactions on the assaults in §8.1 until §8.17), together with the negative reactions on her statement; it would be bias to present in the lead only negative responses on a statement but not the statement itself (but see also the remark in the now following lines).

Sentence 4 ("Wolfgang Albers…"):
The New Year's Eve's sex assaults led to many and various reactions and responses. I would suggest that the most important reactions, which all should be shortly mentioned in the lead section, are the ten public debates evoked by the assaults, that are listed above in this talk section under 'Old lead paragraph B, sentences 3 and 4' and 'Old lead paragraph D'. But while the lead section needs to be short (and include only the most important contents of an article), it would seem (far) too much to also mention all further 20 – relatively simple – reactions and responses after the assaults (as presented in the article's sections 8 and 9) in the lead, and I don't see why we should pick out one or two or three of them (for example the one about Albers' retirement, fully presented in our §9.3) for the lead and thus suggest they are more important than those other seventeen. I suggest therefore to summarize those 20 further reactions in the lead with:
The New Year's Eve's sexual assaults led to several more reactions and effects.

Sentence 5, "blame on the European migrant crisis": unsourced. "…Police response…": unsourced. "…Media reaction": see above, sentence 1.

Sentence 6, "EU meeting": vague and unsourced (meeting to do what?). "...Made statements..": vague and unsourced. --Corriebertus (talk) 21:25, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

Old lead paragraph F

First sentence ('most perpetrators were…'): That citation is not correct. Source Rheinische Post 9 June 2016 gives information on 'most perpetrators' in Cologne, not in Germany as the lead here stated. That information about Cologne was partly already included in our article in §10.4(Identified suspects; paragraph Cologne), I have (in a previous edit, today) expanded that citation with all aspects as mentioned in that (wrong) old lead sentence. Also I've (in that previous edit, today) added a similar citation in §6(Role of refugees; paragraph Cologne). If that incorrect old lead sentence aimed to give a 'profile' of the perpetrators in all Germany: that was not necessary because such a profile was already given in paragraph C in that old lead section.

Sentence two ('matched witnesses'…') was no correct citation.

Sentence 3 and 4 ('low police presence…criminal prosecution …taharrush'): The mentioned BKA(Fed.Crim.Police) report is extensively covered in our §7.6, showing that the BKA enumerates six contributing factors for the assaults, in that report. The old lead copied only two of them ('police presence' and 'collective harassment in Arab countries', not both correctly cited), which would give an unbalanced or biased picture to the reader. I therefore now propose to give this (longer, but) less biased summary in the lead section, directly after the remark from a Cologne police chief about rather common sexual assaults by groups in certain countries:
'That suggestion was confirmed in a Federal Criminal Police report in June 2016, which also identified five more factors contributing to the occurrence of the attacks: group pressure, absence of police intervening, frustrations of migrants, disinhibition from the use of alcohol or drugs, and disinhibition from the absence of social ties in Germany.'
The remark about "weak criminal prosecution" however could not be traced in any of the given ref sources. --Corriebertus (talk) 21:25, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

Old lead paragraph G

Discussed some further consequences of the assaults. See my comment about that, above, by 'Old lead paragraph E, sentence 4, Wolfgang Albers'. --Corriebertus (talk) 21:25, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

Should "most offenders in Cologne had come to Germany as refugee" be replaced with "most offenders in Cologne had come to Germany as refugees"?

Apokrif (talk) 13:19, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

What is going on with this article?

It's stylistically bizarre. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C4:9180:3200:EC4B:19A7:C5E3:1BF1 (talk) 17:55, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

I agree. What is with those subtitles?? "This is not so special" what?? Not at all wikipedia style. The whole thing needs a rewrite. Imnotverycreaatiivee (talk) 17:54, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
Agreed. I have attempted to clean up some of the grammar, but the article has clearly been written by someone for whom English is not their first language. This seems to be a common problem for articles in English written about continental Europe. --TrottieTrue (talk) 03:50, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

'Archive 1' deleted?

Why can one not view the arhive of the Talk page of this article? What is Wikipedia trying to hide from its readers? Uncomfortable truths? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:4C4E:249B:C400:4566:ED31:38B3:B007 (talk) 10:09, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

It doesn't appear to be any sort of censorship, but rather something fubar with how the archive box is set up on this page. You can reach all of the archive pages at this link: https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Talk:New_Year%27s_Eve_sexual_assaults_in_Germany/Archive_1 I'm not much of an expert on the MiszaBot that creates archives, and have yet to figure out what exactly is broken.Anastrophe (talk) 22:25, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

"Bashing Muslims" is slang -- inappropriate section heading

Better to re-word. 2A00:23C5:FE0C:2100:508E:9F0E:8766:7AE8 (talk) 16:58, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

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