Many refugees are shocked by the sexual assaults on New Year's Eve at Cologne Central Station. Some of them have now written an open letter to Angela Merkel, expressing their horror.
Four refugees from Duisburg and Mulheim/Ruhr have written an open letter to Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) about the New Year's Eve attacks. In the letter published on Sunday in Duisburg, the three Syrians and one Pakistani express horror and disgust at the incidents in Cologne, Hamburg and Stuttgart, in which migrants and refugees were presumably involved. "For us, too, the dignity of the human person is inviolable, whether man or woman," the letter says. "For us it is natural to respect the laws of the host country."
"We are refugees, fled from war and terror, from bombs, political persecution and sexual assault," the four men write. "We are glad to have finally found protection in Germany." Many refugees are devout Muslims or Christians and share the values of their brothers and sisters in faith in Germany, the authors emphasize. "We advocate protecting the dignity and honor of women, as the Qur'an and the Bible dictate."In addition, they declare their willingness to "help, within the scope of their possibilities, to ensure that crimes such as those in Cologne are not repeated".
Other refugees who want to join the letter could sign up for signature lists, the Duisburg Refugee Council said. To this end, the letter has been translated into English and Arabic.