The first arrest has been made in the aftermath of the New Year’s assaults in Cologne at the beginning of this month.
The Guardian report that a 26-year-old Algerian man has been arrested following the mass sexual assaults during New Year’s Eve celebrations in the German city.
The man was arrested at a refugee home in the nearby town of Kerpen over the weekend, and is accused of stealing a woman’s phone and groping her.
There have been almost 900 complaints about the events of that night filed to the police, and almost 500 of those are from women alleging sexual assaults, including three allegations of rape.
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party, the CDU agreed on Monday that Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia should be designated as safe countries to cut their citizen’s chance of asylum to almost zero.
There have been mass protests since Dec 31st’s events, including one organised by refugees who are against sexual assault and violence. One protester told DW: “Everybody in the media has reported that it was the refugees who did these things to the women. So then this means that all of the refugees are seen as guilty.”
