Islamophobic and Zionist websites are actively promoting a claim that Norway – and perhaps Europe – is experiencing an “epidemic” of rapes carried out by Muslim men.
This has been given added credibility for some because the claim appears to be based on data in a recent research study by the Oslo Police District, and a news report on that study by Norway’s state broadcaster NRK.
But the claim is completely false. In fact, as The Electronic Intifada discovered and this post will explain, the Oslo Police study found that most rapes in Norway are carried out by men of Norwegian and European background. More importantly, the evidence shows that there is no link between ethnicity, culture or religion and propensity to carry out rapes or sexual assaults.
The “black brute” and the ugly racist history of the rape libel
The rape libel is one of the worst that can be leveled against any group of people, for it is often a justification for dehumanization and organized violence. It was notoriously used to justify lynchings of black men in the southern United States during the Jim Crow era. But now the defamatory stereotype of the “black brute” intent on raping white women is being joined by the racialized Muslim brute.
Islamophobic agitators promote rape libel against Muslims
The rape libel against Muslim men has been repeated on dozens of Zionist and Islamophobic websites, including those frequently cited by Anders Breivik, the man who killed dozens of people on 22 July in the name of protecting Norway from an imagined Muslim takeover.
On 28 May, less than two months before Breivik killed 69 people in Oslo and the island of Utøya, notorious Islamophobe Pamela Geller published an item claiming that in Norway, “All rapes in past 5 years committed by Muslims ‘non-western’ immigrants.”
The same day, Robert Spencer, another Islamophobic inciter frequently cited by Breivik claimed on his JihadWatch website: “Meanwhile, all rapes in Norway in the last five years have been committed by…uh…’non-Western immigrants,’ the latest euphemism for Muslims.”
Spencer also posted a subtitled report from Norway’s state broadcaster NHK which appears to corroborate the claim.
The rape libel also entered the mainstream of US radical Christianist media. A 20 August 2011 report from Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network claimed:
Something else that Muslim immigration appears to have brought to Norway is what some here call “a rape epidemic.”
That report, like so many others, used the rape libel to incite fear of a Muslim takeover.
Promotion by Israeli sources
Norway is suffering from an unprecedented wave of rapes that are largely being perpetrated by Muslim immigrants against local women, according to Yehuda Bello, an acclaimed Israeli blogger whose special interests include Norway.
This was the horrifying claim made by the widely read Israel National News (INN) website earlier this month in an item titled “Muslim ‘Rape Wave’ Reported in Oslo.
INN continues:
Bello says women do not dare venture out of their homes after dark in many parts of Oslo and that many have even dyed their hair black, out of the conviction that blond hair is more alluring to the rapists.
As a quick search will reveal, the INN report can be found on dozens of Zionist, radical Christianist and Islamophobic blogs.
In recent weeks, the popular Israeli “satire” show LatmaTV, backed by an American Neoconservative think-tank, the Center for Security Policy, included the rape libel in an Islamophobic video. In one sequence, a Norwegian father tells his blonde daughter about Muslims: “When they rape you don’t object for that is politically incorrect.”
When the Oslo Police District research study was published, Norway’s state broadcaster NRK carried a report on it. A YouTube video of the report was posted by Geller, Spencer and many other websites to give credibility to the rape libel. It is unclear who made the English subtitles on the YouTube. They begin:
In Oslo, all sexual assaults involving rape in the past year has [sic] been committed by males of non-western background this was the conclusion of a police report published today.This means that every rape assault in the last five years, where the rapist could be identified, he was a man of foreign origin.
The TV report then profiled one victim of a sexual assault. It described the victim as “ethnic Norwegian” and showed her from behind – a young woman with blond hair. It described the perpetrator as a man of “Pakistani heritage,” according to the subtitles.
The TV report suggested that the man’s religion and views of women could explain his behavior. But it never actually uses the word “Muslim,” only the term “non-western.” The conclusion that all the rapists were Muslims appears to be an embellishment by the likes of Pamela Geller.
The TV report also cited figures from the police study claiming that in 83 out of 86 cases of sexual assault involving rape from 2005-2010 the perpetrator was described as “non-Western” in appearance.
Yet an examination of the police research study itself reveals that the Norwegian TV report grossly distorts the findings and omits essential information resulting in a wholly misleading picture..
In light of the findings below, civil rights and anti-racism groups should consider lodging formal complaints against NRK for the gross bias and lack of objectivity of this report which has provided ammunition to racists and Islamophobes all over the world.
What the Oslo Police District research on rape really says
The 88-page research study is titled “Voldtekt i den globale byen” (Rape in the Global Village) and is authored by Marianne Saetre and Veslemøy Grytdal.
The Electronic Intifada had relevant sections of the report (pages 51-56) professionally translated into English. These pages are attached to this post in their entirety along with a PDF of the original Norwegian report for comparison.
A taxonomy of sexual assault
The study distinguishes among different types of sexual assault involving rape: party-related, relationship, vulnerability and assault. The technical definitions are based on the circumstances in which the rape takes place and/or the relationship between attacker and victim.
Assault rape – stereotypically an attack by a stranger – is the rarest form of rape. Out of the 152 reported rapes in the Oslo Police District in 2010, 6 were classified by the researchers as “assault” rapes.
Citizenship of the rapists
The vast majority of rapists in Norway are Norwegian citizens and three quarters are European citizens. The police study states on page 52:
The majority of registered perpetrators in cases of reported rape in Oslo in 2010 have Norwegian citizenship, as has been the case in every previous rape study. In 2010 this went for 61.2% of the perpetrators, which is relatively stable compared to the material from 2007 (60.3%). A relatively high proportion, 12.5%, of the registered perpetrators are from other parts of Europe, and taken together almost three quarters of the perpetrators in 2010 have European citizenship. For the rest, 10.5% are from Africa, 9.2% from the Middle East, 4.6% from Asia and 2% from America.
Ethnic background: “Europeans” were the largest group of rapists
According to the Oslo Police study, persons of Norwegian background were the largest group among the identified rapists and persons of “European” background comprised more than half. The 152 rapes in 2010 were carried out by 131 suspects. The study states on pages 53-54:
The proportion of perpetrators (unique persons) of Norwegian national background is the group whose representation increases the most, comprising 38.2% of perpetrators. Together this brings the proportion of perpetrators with a European continental background to a total of 51.9%
Assault rape and the relevance of ethnic background
The authors of the Oslo Police study appear to be aware that they are writing in a context where rape and other crimes are being generally blamed on foreigners. They write:
Crude generalizations that have given the impression that rapists are only foreigners – and primarily Muslims – are shown to be inadequate and erroneous.
The study notes that while there are no Norwegian rapists in the six assault rapes in 2010 where the perpetrator is identified, the number of cases is very small and the circumstances very “special.” When taking a broader sample of assault rapes, there is more diversity among the perpetrators. On pages 55-56:
The ethnic profile varies within the different types of rape, but for all types except assault rape the largest group is composed of Norwegian perpetrators. Assault rape only comprises 6 cases, however, and the same perpetrator was responsible for two of these (there were 5 unique suspects/persons seen in 6 reports). In 4 of the six reports (3 unique men) the perpetrator was from the Middle-East, in one assault rape the man was from Africa, and in another, from Asia.
SOURCE :Claims that all assault rapes are committed by foreigners are thus supported by these figures, although the basis for the claims is small and the selection is special. Two of the five different identified perpetrators responsible for the assault rapes were very young – less than 18 – and two had serious psychiatric diagnoses. If you extend the material to cover the 16 assault rape cases in which the person is unidentified, but where a description has been provided by the victim, another picture emerges: 8 of the perpetrators were of African/dark-skinned appearance, 5 were western/fair-haired/Nordic and 4 looked Asian. It is not certain how many different people provided these descriptions of the perpetrators, as the perpetrators of assault rapes tend to commit several violations.“Alien culture” is not an explanation for rape
The Police research study stresses that ethnicity itself is not a factor. What are factors contributing to assault rapes are when perpetrators are on the margins of society. On page 56:It must be emphasized once more that the marked over-representation of individuals from a minority background in connection with several types of rape cannot be interpreted as a result of alien culture being a causal explanation for rape. The reports apply to only a few of the rapes that occur, and the inclination to report rape is different for perpetrators of Norwegian origin than it is for those of a different country of origin. Furthermore there is thorough quantitative research to confirm that statistical differences in criminal behavior between ethnic groups disappear when the figures are controlled for the socio-economic circumstances in which the individuals concerned have grown up in Norway.
Debunked: the Zionist and Islamophobic libel of a "rape epidemic" by ...
Right-wing websites claim that Germany is facing an alleged epidemic of rape cases committed by refugees, fueling panic about the recent influx of foreigners and the safety of women in the country. We investigated one site's reports and found many problems with them. By DER SPIEGEL Staff
The two rapes in Germany were picked up by the national media. But one of them didn't even happen.
The "university rapist" in Bochum, it turns out, did actually exist -- and he would go on to attack another female student from China three months later. Ultimately, police captured a 31-year-old asylum-seeker from Iraq, who had lived with his wife and two children in a refugee camp located near the crime scene. A court sentenced him in the first verdict to 11 years in prison.
But the alleged Rostock rapist did not exist. Police had expressed some doubt about whether the incident had in fact taken place in their first press release on the case and a forensic investigation indicated that the woman herself had been responsible for her injuries. In June 2016, the public prosecutor in Rostock closed the investigation, but by then the news of a dark-skinned rapist had already been shared thousands of times on the internet. The Schweriner Volkszeitungnewspaper in the state capital even reported on its website about the alleged sex crime, citing "internal sources." The article began with the words: "The Rostock chief of police is keeping silent."
Baseless Rumors
Meanwhile, in a report on the Facebook page NonStopNews Rostock, the dark-skinned man became a "Südländer," a term often used to describe those living in some Mediterranean countries. "Sex crime in Warnemünde? Was a young woman raped? Südländer reportedly attacked woman."
The website Rapefugees.net, meanwhile, was even more precise in its allegations. "Rostock police are hushing up oral rape perpetrated by an Arab."
The truth behind these baseless rumors is important because such stories influence Germans' image of refugees. They play into age-old clichés about the threat of foreign rapists. Few other arguments were cited as frequently by people in Germany in recent years for wanting to keep refugee camps from being opened in their immediate proximity. Once "they" are here, the argument went, the streets would no longer be safe for women or children unaccompanied by men.
After the events of new year's eve in Cologne on Dec. 31, 2015, during which hundreds of women were sexually assaulted, the police held young men, largely of North African extraction, responsible for the attacks. The night brought an end to the sense of euphoria that had accompanied the welcoming of hundreds of thousands of refugees into the country earlier that year. Some Germans now found to their horror that the migrants had also brought problems along with them into the country.
In fall 2016, the body of Maria L., a university student, was found in a river in the city of Freiburg, where she had been drowned after getting raped. The suspect in the killing, an Afghan asylum-seeker, is currently on trial. In spring 2017, an asylum-seeker from Ghana whose application had been rejected raped a woman who was camping with her boyfriend near the city of Bonn. In an initial verdict in the case, a court sentenced the man to 11.5 years in prison.
Is Everyday Life More Dangerous for Women Than Before?
These kinds of reports reaffirm the attitudes of those who have always held the view that refugees are dangerous. But is there any truth to the claim that everyday life has grown more dangerous for women living in Germany as a result of the growing numbers of immigrants? Is life in fact less safe than it was for women three years ago? And how often do refugees commit sex crimes?
To answer these questions, DER SPIEGEL reviewed crime statistics, interviewed police officials, consulted academic experts and analyzed around 450 online news reports about purported sex crimes alleged to have been committed by asylum-seekers and immigrants. Our reporters also visited police stations, public prosecutors and courts to uncover the background behind the news reports and the ultimate outcome of any proceedings. Some cases were revisited up to five different times and in several instances, reporters also met with people involved in the cases for background interviews. The reporters then analyzed the documents and information together with data-journalism specialists and fact-checkers.
Incitement?
As soon as you hit the like button on Facebook pages like Heimatliebe.Deutschland (Love for the German Fatherland), Truth24.net or any local branch page of the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, you enter a parallel reality. And it is dark. Day after day, your timeline is filled with reports of horrific violent crimes and rapes. The images show men who look Arab or African and women looking into the camera as someone holds a hand over their mouth from behind. Or images of children cowering in the shadows.
One particularly egregious page is Rapefugees.net. The site's creators claim that the police, politicians and the media are working together to cover up the truth. Using an online map of Germany, they use pins to mark sites of violence or sexual offenses purportedly committed by refugees.
The inflammatory term "rapefugee" has been appearing with increasing frequency on far-right web pages since the events of new year's eve 2015 in Cologne. "Rapefugees not welcome" T-shirts have also appeared from time to time at demonstrations in Dresden by PEGIDA, the anti-immigration group known in full as Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West.
Spending a bit of time on the site is enough to leave anyone frightened. It renders Germany, a country generally celebrated for its relative safety, nearly unrecognizable. The entire map is covered with red, yellow and purple flags, squares and pins purportedly marking the locations of incidents of rape, sexual abuse and exhibitionism. There are also a few gravestones marked with "RIP" for alleged murders committed by refugees.
A closer look at the site reveals that other immigrants suspected of committing these types of crimes are also listed, not just refugees. The site's creators claim their data is based on reputable sources, including police and newspaper reports. It all looks real. Anonymous authors post stories with headlines like, "Gang Rape: Bed-Ridden Grandmother Hospitalized Following Rape by Economic Migrants." Or: "Gang Rape: How Justice Officials in North Rhine-Westphalia Banned a Local Newspaper from Publishing These Pictures." Each story is packed with the same narrative -- that rapes like the ones in Bochum, Freiburg and Bonn aren't isolated cases and that refugees, mostly Muslims, represent a real threat to women.
DER SPIEGEL researched the veracity of the supposed incidents on the Rapefugees.net map. To create the most comprehensive overview possible, the reporters chose 10 German states, both large and small: among them the city-states of Berlin, Bremen and Hamburg; the western German states of Bavaria, North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland and Schleswig-Holstein; and the eastern states of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Saxony Anhalt. In each of these states, reporters looked into all of the alleged incidents reported for 2016. In many cases, results from police and justice investigations were available for that period. There were 445 cases in all
Some cases appeared multiple times on the map and some of the locations marked had broken links or led to pages that did not contain any information about the alleged crime. In some instances, neither prosecutors nor police had ever heard of the purported crime. All of these pins, roughly a third of the total, were filtered out before the in-depth reporting began.
Strong Exaggeration?
The remaining reports, as is true with most well-constructed lies, contain at least a bit of truth. In about one-third of the cases DER SPIEGEL investigated -- around a hundred of them -- the suspects or perpetrators are indeed refugees. In a further third of the cases, the assailants remain unidentified. The remaining ones are foreigners with unresolved residency status, European Union citizens or, in 22 cases, German nationals (see graphic below). But the website's incendiary name creates the impression that 445 sex crimes had all been committed by refugees.
The descriptions of the crimes provided on the website are often erroneous. The website lists 205 of the 291 incidents reviewed as cases of rape. But reporting into the claims found that rape was only suspected in 59 of the cases. Although these should not be downplayed, many of the cases in question were less severe incidences of sexual assault or harassment. In 47 cases, the authorities determined that the incident did not meet the criteria to be considered a criminal act. In other words, the map seems to involve some strong exaggeration, at least when compared to the findings of police and judicial officials.
Twenty-six suspects or perpetrators were refugees in the rapes investigated. Each of the crimes committed is, of course, one too many, but the ultimate figure is low compared to what the map suggests.
Eighteen refugees were convicted on charges of rape, and courts also convicted or upheld rulings against 51 refugees -- for sexual abuse or sexual assault in more than half of the cases. An additional 18 foreigners have been convicted who are not refugees but whose residency status remains unresolved, including Turks and Afghans, several Serbians, an Azerbaijani and a Ukrainian tourist who sexually abused an inebriated woman at Oktoberfest in Munich. Six of those convicted are EU citizens and eight are German. They include a 46-year-old man who attacked a blind woman in the Bavarian town of Pfaffenhofen from behind on an open street and sexually assaulted her.
On the Rapefugees.net map, the case is noted as a "cover-up attempt." But no information is provided about what might have been swept under the rug.
A closer inspection of the crimes for which refugees were convicted showed that many took place in refugee camps. In most cases, the victims were the children of other refugees. In August 2016, for example, a young Eritrean man lured a six-year-old girl, likewise from Eritrea, into his room in a Hamburg camp and abused her. Police arrested the man.
Twenty-four of the reports investigated on Rapefugees.net appear to be false claims. They include the rape in Rostock that was likely fabricated, but nevertheless remains listed on the map. And the case of a 15-year-old school girl from the city of Möchengladbach, who claimed in January 2016 that she had been raped near the city's central train station. The perpetrator had a "tanned face" she said and spoke with a foreign accent. In response, angry local residents formed their own vigilante group. A week later, the police announced that the crime "had not happened" in the way described by the teen. The alleged perpetrator was an acquaintance who said everything had happened with mutual consent. Public prosecutors opened an investigation into the 15-year-old for making up a crime, but later dropped it.
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