German authorities accused of playing down refugee shelter sex crime reports

Germany's police union and women's rights groups accused the authorities on Tuesday of playing down reports of harassment, sexual assault and even rape at refugee shelters because they feared a backlash against asylum seekers.

Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere called on Germans to avoid succumbing to a blanket suspicion of the hundreds of thousands of migrants arriving in the country, saying an unbelievable number of rumors were being spread on the Internet.

But police union chief Rainer Wendt said he believed that authorities in Germany's federal states, which are responsible for housing asylum seekers, were playing down the problem of assaults on women in the shelters.

"It is understandable that there is the desire to calm things down politically," Wendt told Reuters. But he, along with women's groups, believed that ignoring the problem would be counterproductive. "There is a lot of glossing over going on. But this doesn't represent reality," he said.

With public opinion hardening on the refugee influx, German authorities appear anxious to avoid giving extreme-right groups any opportunity to stir up hostility towards migrants, many of whom are Muslims including those fleeing the Syrian civil war.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/06/us-europe-migrants-germany-idUSKCN0S02N220151006?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews&rpc=69