A youth centre in Berlin has been accused of refusing to report the alleged gang-rape of a schoolgirl because they feared the suspects would be labelled “typical Muslims”.
In January employees at the facility in the multicultural neighbourhood of Neukölln caught nine Arab males groping the 16-year-old victim in a back room, and the girl then told staff she had been gang-raped in the centre’s garden in November.
The girl said the alleged attack was filmed, and one of the youths, a 17-year-old called Medi, threatened to send the footage her to parents unless she came to the youth centre every Monday, and demanded to meet her 14-year-old sister, Bild reported.
Staff responded by removing the door to the back room and giving female visitors a “safe word” to use if they felt threatened, but did not report the alleged rape to police in order to avoid stigmatising the alleged perpetrators.
The girl, of Turkish-Kurdish descent, then went to police with her parents, resulting in officers confiscating the suspect’s phone and launching an investigation.
Berlin Youth State Secretary Falko Liecke from the Christian Democrats said he was looking into whether the centre had violated child protection laws.
“”It’s outrageous that the Muslim perpetrators are apparently being protected here to avoid stigmatising them, while the victim is being abandoned. This attitude is completely unacceptable,” he said.
“This case was clearly meant to be swept under the rug for political reasons. It wasn’t even put on the agenda at the district office, even though it should have been. Neither the youth welfare office nor the responsible city councillor filed any reports with the police. This is a scandal and must have consequences.”
The Neukölln youth welfare office, which was informed of the alleged incident on January 29, claimed it did not file a report because it did not know the names of the alleged victims or perpetrators.
According to 2024 data released last year, nearly half of the rapes in Berlin were carried out by non-German citizens, who make up about 25% of the population.
The statistics do not show what proportion of the remaining 50% were German citizens of foreign birth or descent.
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