Angela Merkel in Heilbronn

"The ever-increasing influx of refugees has complicated the situation for women and girls at the receiving center in Giessen (HEAE) and its subsidiaries.
"The practice of providing accommodations in large tents, the lack of gender-separate sanitary facilities, premises that cannot be locked, the lack of safe havens for women and girls — to name just a few spatial factors — increases the vulnerability of women and children within the HEAE. This situation plays into the hands of those men who assign women a subordinate role and treat women traveling alone as 'wild game'.
"The consequences are numerous rapes and sexual assaults. We are also receiving an increasing number of reports of forced prostitution. It must be stressed: these are not isolated cases.
"Women report that they, as well as children, have been raped or subjected to sexual assault. As a result, many women sleep in their street clothes. Women regularly report that they do not use the toilet at night because of the danger of rape and robbery on the way to the sanitary facilities. Even during daylight, passing through the camp is a frightful situation for many women.
"Many women — in addition to fleeing wars or civil wars — are also on the run for gender-related reasons, including the threat of forced marriage or genital mutilation. These women who face special risks, especially when they are on the run alone or with their children. Even if they are accompanied by male relatives or acquaintances, this does not always ensure protection against violence because it can also lead to specific dependencies and sexual exploitation.
"Most female refugees have experienced a variety of traumatizing experiences in their country of origin and while on the run. They are victims of violence, kidnappings, torture, rape and extortion — sometimes over periods of several years.
"The feeling to have arrived here — in safety — and to be able to move without fear, is a gift for many women.... We therefore ask you...to join our call for the immediate establishment of protected premises (locked apartments or houses) for women and children who are travelling alone....
"These facilities must be equipped so that men do not have access to the premises of the women, with the exception of emergency workers and security personnel. In addition bedrooms, lounges, kitchens and sanitary facilities must be interconnected so that they form a self-contained unit — and thus can only be reached via lockable and monitored access to the house or the apartment."

"The Syrian citizens are mainly Muslim and speak Arabic. The refugees have their own culture. Because our school is directly next to where they are staying, modest clothing should be worn in order to avoid disagreements. Revealing tops or blouses, short shorts or miniskirts could lead to misunderstandings."

"When Muslim teenage boys go to open air swimming pools, they are overwhelmed when they see girls in bikinis. These boys, who come from a culture where for women it is frowned upon to show naked skin, will follow girls and bother them without their realizing it. Naturally, this generates fear."

[size=10]by Tyler Durden
Aug 19, 2016 3:00 AM

• Figures released in July by Destatis, the government's statistics agency, showed that more than 2.1 million people migrated to Germany in 2015.
  
• More than 33,000 migrants who are supposed to be deported are still in Germany and are being cared for by German taxpayers. Many of the migrants destroyed their passports and are believed to have lied about their countries of origin to make it impossible for them to be deported. Others have gone into hiding so that immigration police cannot find them.
  
• An investigative report by Bavarian Radio BR24 found that deradicalization programs in Germany are failing, because many Salafists do not want to become deradicalized.
  
• "My impression is that we all underestimated a year ago what was in store for us with this big refugee and migration movement. Integration is a Herculean task that does not end with a three-week language course." — Jens Spahn, CSU politician.
  

Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Wednesday refugees had not brought terrorism to Germany, adding that Islam belonged in the country as long as it was practiced in a way that respected the constitution.
 
More than a million people fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere arrived in Germany last year. The mood towards them has soured after a spate of attacks on civilians last month, including three carried out by migrants.
 
Two of those attacks were claimed by the Islamic State militant group.
 
"The phenomenon of Islamist terrorism, of IS, is not a phenomenon that came to us with the refugees," Merkel said at an election campaign event for her Christian Democrats in the eastern state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern ahead of a regional vote on Sept. 4.
 
Merkel said many people had traveled from Germany to Syria for training with Islamist militants. In June Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said a total of more than 800 were believed to have gone to Syria and Iraq.
 
"This group has worried us for several years," she said at the event in Neustrelitz, a town 100 km (60 miles) north of Berlin.

According to mayor Bernd Pohlers of the eastern town of Saxony Waldenburg, the asylum seekers refused to accept the work that was offered to them after they arrived in the country.
 
The local council spent £600 arranging for the men to have uniforms but were stunned when they were told they would not complete it because they were "guests of Angela Merkel".
 
While asylum seekers are not allowed to work under immigration rules within the EU, they are allowed to do voluntary work.
 
However officials in the district of Zwickau came up with a plan to help encourage those without employment to get back to work and to help them become more accepted within the local community.
 
In order to do this they created voluntary jobs which included a nominal payment of £18 for 20 hours work.
 
But all of the male residents of the local refugee accommodation who initially agreed to get involved in the charitable activities quit after discovering there was a minimum wage £7.30 (€8.50) in Germany.
 
The men had been picked up and offered transportation from their paid-for housing where they are also given food and then dropped home.
 
Mayor Pohlers said: "It was subsequently argued by these people that they are guests of Mrs. Merkel and guests do not have to work.
 
"Furthermore, they were of the opinion that there is a minimum wage (€8.50) in Germany, and that this had to be paid by the City Waldenburg."

Germany has a long history of far-right attacks, and many far-right groups have adopted fervently anti-Muslim or anti-migrant views. The Islamic State itself has published scores of texts that attack refugees who abandon its self-proclaimed caliphate; the group seems to relish any opportunity to stoke anti-refugee sentiment in Europe.
 
Merkel's appearance at the campaign event may also have been a pushback against the rhetoric of the Alternative for Germany party that is expected to do well in upcoming regional elections in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.