Unprecedented sex harassment in Helsinki at New Year: police

[joeybee12]

Helsinki (AFP) - Finnish police reported Thursday an unusually high level of sexual harassment in Helsinki on New Year's Eve and said they had been tipped off about plans by groups of asylum seekers to sexually harass women.

Helsinki deputy police chief Ilkka Koskimaki told AFP: "There hasn't been this kind of harassment on previous New Year's Eves or other occasions for that matter... This is a completely new phenomenon in Helsinki."

Security guards hired to patrol the city on New Year's Eve told police there had been "widespread sexual harassment" at a central square where around 20,000 people had gathered for celebrations.

Three sexual assaults allegedly took place at Helsinki's central railway station on New Year's Eve, where around 1,000 mostly Iraqi asylum seekers had converged.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/unprecedented-sex-harassment-helsinki-police-194548532.html?nhp=1

[smirkymonkey]

1. WTF is going on in Europe?

Why are they picking on the women? What filthy little cowards!

[Elmergantry]

2. I doubt these are Europeans doing this.

The article is implying Iraqi refugees. The Europeans are only guilty of letting these people in without vetting them. Sometime you learn the hard way.

[840high]

3. Yep.

[smirkymonkey]

4. No, I didn't think it was native Europeans, but this does seem to

be like a series of coordinated actions. Against women.

What are they doing. Are they trying to intimidate women into submission?

[philosslayer]

9. If the victims are to be believed....

[Bluenorthwest]

11. So you are doubting the women now, openly joining these men you keep defending?

That's disgusting.

[Lizzie Poppet]

20. Riiiight. Hundreds of women conspired to lie about this.

For fuck sake, listen to yourself. If you actually believe this and aren't just tro...er..."engaging in performance art," then not to put too fine a point on it, you're being irrational.

[bullwinkle428]

22. Kind of like all of Bill Cosby's victims?

[geek tragedy]

30. Your routine is getting tiresome and obvious nt

[Shandris]

64. That dime a post is probably important to him, neh? n/t

[geek tragedy]

66. this is performance art--a wingnut who takes what he perceives to be the most crazy leftwing

position possible as an attempt to troll sane lefties

[GummyBearz]

74. Yep

I tried alerting on one of his obvious posts... jury let it stand. Who can get him and his BS out of here??

[romanic]

33. yeah they're all just a bunch of islamphobic liars.

[IMG][/IMG]

Your act is tired.

[leftynyc]

42. Your defense - in many posts already

on this subject show you already don't believe the women, the men are all misunderstood innocent bystanders who are the victims of xenophobia. Why are you having so much trouble just admitting these animals have bitten the hands trying to help them and have zero respect for the laws in the countries that took them in? Nobody but right wing assholes are blaming ALL refugees but you still defend the animals. Why?

[underahedgerow]

26. It's not coordinated, it's CULTURAL. The only exposure to western women these ME guys have had

is through porn. Ergo, in their small minds, all western women are porn stars. That's one thing.

For another, they view all women as lower than dogs and not deserving of any equality or respect. I wrote this a couple days ago http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=7504803 and it describes my experiences living in the thick of EU settlers from the ME in Brussels.

Fearful people will insist on trying to oppress and intimidate those whom they fear the most. These ME men are totally unused to seeing women walking, speaking and socializing freely and equally (relatively) among men.

Just wait until the women start fighting back, these wussy boys are going to get owned.

I think pepper spray and siren whistles could be a big seller in the EU.

[arely staircase]

35. I knew some guys from Egypt in college.

They watched porn non fucking stop. Never known anyone to watch as much porn as those guys. A couple of friends from Egypt came to visit and that is all they did for a week.

[Blue_Tires]

55. Well, when all people know is a conservative, sexually repressive society

where women have less rights, it's difficult for their brains to process when they come to the west (especially the more sexually open European countries)...

Like I've pointed out in past threads, there's no mistake that ISIS warlords pay the highest prices to recruiting agents for white, blonde wives...

[DhhD]

39. Islamic Fatwas permitting rape of non-Sunni women.

https://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=A0SO8z.2qo9WxfcAXbZXNyoA;_ylc=X1MDMjc2NjY3OQRfcgMyBGZyA3NmcARncHJpZAN3dlFxWTVHYlREcXBsTUN0QzVwYkhBBG5fcnNsdAMwBG5fc3VnZwMwBG9yaWdpbgNzZWFyY2gueWFob28uY29tBHBvcwMwBHBxc3RyAwRwcXN0cmwDBHFzdHJsAzMzBHF1ZXJ5A0lzbGFtaWMgQ2xlcmljIGlzc3VlIGEgcmFwZSBGYXR3YQR0X3N0bXADMTQ1MjI1NTk2NQ--?p=Islamic+Cleric+issue+a+rape+Fatwa&fr2=sb-top-search&fr=sfp

[lostnfound]

37. Something about this reminds me of the story of the overthrow of Mossadeqh

I still remember my history teaching telling us about groups of young men were paid (by the OSS in that case) to go through the streets creating havoc and causing fear, to get public opinion turned against the country's leader.

"According to the CIA's declassified documents and records, some of the most feared mobsters in Tehran were hired by the CIA to stage pro-Shah riots on 19 August. Other CIA-paid men were brought into Tehran in buses and trucks, and took over the streets of the city."

Maybe these attacks are cultural, or maybe they are instrumental. Who knows?

[Xithras]

67. In most middle eastern cultures, it's unacceptable for women to party in public.

Those that do are generally seen as the "loose morals" variety.

The problem here is a common Middle Eastern view of women (and this isn't just a Muslim thing...I've known plenty of Assyrians and Chaldeans who do the same thing). Basically, an assault against a woman isn't an assault against the woman, but an assault against her family, her father and brothers, and their honor. It's the same cultural worldview that condones women being executed for having sex out of wedlock, or even for being raped. According to their cultural mores, you don't assault women because it dishonors their families, and because the families of the victim will push for your prosecution (or worse). Women are property. Women have no rights on their own.

When you are raised to believe that women have no rights beyond what they are granted by the men in their family, you don't automatically start respecting them when you cross a national border. When you are told your entire life that European fathers don't care about their daughters "morals" and that they aren't dishonored by their daughters sleeping around, you don't suddenly begin seeing women as capable of choosing their own moral pathways simply because a nation accepts you into their fold.

If you are raised to believe that women shouldn't be assaulted because it dishonors their families, and you move to a nation where womens behavior doesn't reflect on their families honor (or where the very concept of family honor is absent), you've created a situation where the moral bias against assault has been removed.

Cultural re-education is the only solution here. They need to be taught that their previous cultural beliefs vis-a-vis womens rights were simply WRONG and need to be updated. There is no room for tolerance or cultural understanding on some topics like this one.

[Skittles]

76. if they are criminals they need to be deported

I bet the threat of deportation would amend their sick behavior more than any "re-education"

[Lizzie Poppet]

18. A culture clash.

Two meta-cultures with radically different viewpoints towards the status of women, basically. Sure, it's vastly more complex than that (as human interactions invariably are), but it's foolish to sugar-coat it: the people who seem to have been behaving this way all over northern Europe this New Year's are from cultures in which deeply-ingrained, systemic, institutionalized misogyny is rampant. That culture's "problem children" are encouraged at a pretty deep psychological level by its ingrained anti-feminism. The average Muslim man would never think of behaving in such a manner...but any large group has its predators, its undesirables.

[6chars]

46. Culture clash my ass

It is just criminal. Playing music loud = culture clash. Intentionally harming others = evil.

[Lizzie Poppet]

48. Please don't get me wrong. These attacks are undoubtedly evil.

My point is that they arise from the conflict between a modern culture with progressive values (particularly those values concerning the status of women) and a culture mired in medieval thinking about those values. I didn't mean to imply that these opposing sets of values are equal in merit or that cultural tolerance should extend to any culture's radically anti-progressive aspects.

[6chars]

57. We need to hold these people to human standards not animal standards

If a pack of dogs came along and started biting people, we would call it a species clash. The dogs just bite because that's what dogs do. There is no way I am willing to say that men from Iraq or Syria or wherever are even acting consistent with any values. They fucking know better. They have cell phones and internet. They are just doing this anyway because they think they deserve to be able to.

We don't say fraternity party sexual assaults are a culture clash. We say they are criminal, pure and simple. I'm sure a fraternity assaulter could claim that he comes from a culture mired in medieval thinking, but no, it is just someone who thinks they can get away with something selfishly doing something they want to with full knowledge of the harm it does other human beings, as if those other human beings are not human beings.

Screw these assholes. They are just assholes.

[Tipperary]

40. They come from countries where women have

no rights. I hope the countries of Europe clamp down on this. Hard and quick.

"Filthy little cowards" is right. Sickening.

[Blue_Tires]

53. They heard how easy and uninhibited all those Euro chicks are

[philosslayer]

5. More migrant bashing and blaming

What a surprise.

[smirkymonkey]

7. Oh bullshit! This might not be new migrants, but it is definitely

second generation muslims. Cut the crap.

[philosslayer]

8. Oh really?

You live in Helsinki? You have first hand knowledge ? Please enlighten us.

[Bluenorthwest]

12. And yet you, not a resident of Helsinki attemtp to 'enlighten'.

nt

[Elmergantry]

14. I would be glad too...

"Three sexual assaults allegedly took place at Helsinki's central railway station on New Year's Eve, where around 1,000 mostly Iraqi asylum seekers had converged."

[smirkymonkey]

15. Do you want to see an example of how muslim men treat European women?

[cali]

44. Now that is disturbing.

[6chars]

47. At least one of the bystanders stepped in to help

[Bonx]

51. I don't think that treatment is specific to European women.

[LittleBlue]

59. And the men stood by and watched.

So eager to be nonviolent and tolerant that they throw their own women under the bus. Sad, pathetic shells of men.

[Lizzie Poppet]

19. Do you? You can refute the reports (FROM that city) with actual observation?

Didn't think so...

[6chars]

38. Why are people assuming it was not Finnish men?

[philosslayer]

28. Let's make this very clear

Islam is a peaceful religion. Yes, there is a small minority of men who have abhorrent views. But extrapolating those views to a population of 1.6 Billion people is demonstrates your extreme Islamophobia.

[flamingdem]

32. It's a religion that appears to controls women drastically

and these attacks show the cultural attitudes from those cultures.

Women should be covered up.

Women in those cultures many times agree with that assessment.

[Separation]

34. A small minority?

Where are you getting your figures from?

[mwrguy]

27. Immigrants are guilty until

Fuck it, they are just automatically guilty.

[Democat]

36. What is wrong with DUers who defend rape if it's done by certain groups?

Some posters on DU are becoming a parody of liberals.

[ProfessorGAC]

54. ^^This^^

Can you believe this? If christian men were behind it, there'd be wailing and gnashing of teeth. I'm not muslim or christian. (Or jewish, or buddhist, or. . . .)

[pampango]

41. Muslim refugees/migrants = BAD. Sometimes it seems we are trying to be more anti-Muslim

than Trump and the European far-right are.

There is a problem with integrating immigrants and refugees in Europe. Deal with it rather than bashing all Muslims for the crimes of a relative few. The ones doing these crimes represent a tiny, tiny fraction of the Muslims living in Europe, yet we have post after post dealing with it.

[geek tragedy]

49. Realistically, single young men are going to be categorically

excluded from asylum status. whatever percentage are bad apples represent too high of a cost for the host countries to bear.

That's the only way any asylum survives the political process--excluding the potential rapists.

[leftynyc]

43. Bullshit

And I doubt I'm the only one getting tired of your bullshit posts defending the animals going after all these women in Germany by playing the xenophobe card. Just fucking stop it already. Are you also going to deny many of these refugees come from countries where abuse of women is rampant and that many of the men are taught that all western women are whores?

[Yupster]

21. Agree with everything except

the small dick part.

I think this has a lot more to do with culture than anatomy.

It would be offensive to say a woman is aggressive in business to make up for her small breast size. It's equally offensive to say a man is aggressive towards woman to make up for his small genital size.

[Yupster]

24. Somehow I think that if a scientific study was done

measuring the dick sizes of Arab men who weren't in Helsinki harassing women and Arabic men who were in Helsinki harassing women I think you'd find there was no difference in the range of dick sizes from one group to the other.

They harass women because their culture tells them women shouldn't go around uncovered without men escorting them acting like they're as good as men.

The dick thing I think is one of those gratuitous insults that is allowed and even considered funny when directed at men while a similar insult against women would be considered misogynist. It's kind of like the sit com and movie staple of kicking a man in the balls and everyone laughs while a similar thing directed at a woman would be shocking.

Unfortunately DU is a pretty bad offender when it comes to the blanket insulting of men. There just doesn't seem to be the same expected sensitivity to language as there is toward women.

[Yupster]

29. Yet the countries where men have statistically the smallest dicks

which is East Asia and southeast Asia, they don't have those same harassing cultural traits toward covering women, etc.

I just don't think you're looking at the right head if you're trying to figure out which cultures treat women the worst. I think it's the head on top of their necks that is the problem, not the one on their dicks.

I think if you gave every Arab man a dick vacuum pump it wouldn't change the way they treat women one bit.

[AlbertCat]

71. It's a joke

Can't people make off color jokes..... so absurd that it's amazing anyone thinks they are serious.


Obviously not....since it was hidden.

Of course that only guarantees it will be read.

[flamingdem]

31. In their culture women being out uncovered is cause for those kinds of attacks

so they'd better get used to it or take on the challenge of changing entrenched attitudes and morays.

[leftynyc]

45. Ladies - time to carry baseball

bats with you. Decorate them, paint them purple, do whatever you want but maybe if a few heads got bashed in for trying to assault a woman, it would make these animals think twice. If this were happening in NYC, I sure would be carrying something - bats, pepper spray, or a gun.

[philosslayer]

52. Yes by all means

Lets encourage German women to carry knives and guns. That will certainly solve the problem.

[leftynyc]

60. Absolutely

Got a problem with women defending themselves from animals? Doesn't seem the cops have a handle on this so yes, women should defend themselves.

[6chars]

62. pepper spray / mace would be more discrete

Baseball bats seems a little much, especially since baseball is not a European sport.

[leftynyc]

63. Pepper spray is good

but I understand it's flying off the shelves and is hard to come by right now. Besides, if they see the women carrying a baseball bat (or whatever) - especially if it's a group of armed women, they wont get close. Pepper spray they have to be too close.

[GummyBearz]

50. A pattern seems to be emerging

And it is a very negative pattern. Wonder if anything should be done about it? Hmm...

[6chars]

61. Norway is already on it

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/20/world/europe/norway-offers-migrants-a-lesson-in-how-to-treat-women.html?_r=3&mtrref=undefined

[SDJay]

58. When a Rotten Apple is Introduced to the Basket...

Such as the rotten apple that is this back-asswards, fucked-up ME culture that's come to Europe, you can either remove that rotten apple or let it fester. Doing the latter means that this garbage will quickly become more and more 'normal' and at best you'll have areas in these European cities where non-recent immigrants simply will no longer go. At worst you'll have mayhem, vigilantism, extreme xenophobia and a lot of violence.

Either take tangible and immediate steps to make it clear that these folks need to assimilate (and help those who are willing to do so) or make it clear that they'll be shipped the fuck out if they're not going to adhere to the norms of western society. Is it their fault that they were taught that women are property? No. But when someone invites you into their home, you don't crap on their living room rug and then scream victim when you're tossed out the back door. These folks have had horrible things happen to them. Now it's up to them to step up and learn a new way of living and thinking, because it's not the fault of Fins or Germans that these people lived in such awful places until now.

[RunInCircles]

65. Think about this a little more critically

This was not a spur of the moment thing. Hundreds of men were organized and brought to the site they worked together.
This happened at the same time in at least one other location Cologne. These attacks were planned. There is an agenda behind this.
Events like these are designed to create an emotional reaction and a backlash and to change a political dynamic.
Who benefits, who's political capital is tarnished. Who paid for it? Who organized it. What was their agenda. There is no clash of cultures here. Assaulting women is now being used to make a political statement.
I am normally very impressed with the thoughtful comments on DU. This time I think I am disappointed that the reactions are all emotional and superficial.

[6chars]

68. Social media?

is one guess.

If investigators were to look into that, they might find some interesting trails to follow.

[Bluenorthwest]

69. So why are all of those men willing patsies of some mystery agenda, kid? You paint them as if they

were idiots and not grown men who are simply criminals.

[geek tragedy]

70. Another idiotic "false flag" post. It's really as simple as that men in the middle east grow up

thinking it's okay to assault women in public.

From an Egyptian women's human rights group

SEXUAL HARASSMENT IN EGYPT


Experienced by 98% of foreign women visitors

Experienced by 83% of Egyptian women

62% of Egyptian men admitted harassing women

53% of Egyptian men blame women for 'bringing it on'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7514567.stm

[hifiguy]

72. It's far past time for the laughable myth of "cultural relativism"

to be buried as deeply as possible. No culture is perfect, and being a human artifact no culture can be, by definition.

It is as plain as the nose on your face, however, that some cultures are vastly superior to and more civilized than others and anyone who denies that has their head up their fundament.

[Skittles]

73. the more equal the women, the more superior the culture

that's what it looks like to me

[hifiguy]

75. That is as accurate a one-issue benchmark

as I can imagine and I wholly agree.