Women assaulted at chaotic German town festival: policeJuly 17, 2017 - 17:08 AMT PanARMENIAN.Net - German police said Monday, July 17 several assaults and cases of sexual harassment were reported in alcohol-fuelled weekend disturbances that saw youths rampage through a small town and hurl bottles at police, AFP reports. No arrests had been made over the alleged harassment, but police were treating as a suspect a 20-year-old Iraqi man and, in a separate case in which a 17-year-old girl was groped, three Afghan asylum seekers aged 18-20. Police chief Roland Eisele urged other women to come forward if they were abused on Friday or Saturday night during the chaotic scenes that started at a local festival in the southwestern town of Schorndorf, Baden-Wuerttemberg state. Eisele said "the aggression and escalation of violence" were unprecedented and unexpected in the town of about 40,000 people, located near Stuttgart, and that the local police force had to request backup from other cities. Police said in a statement that many youths "with migrant backgrounds" were seen in the crowd, but Eisele said that it was impossible to estimate a percentage. Officers in riot gear moved into a crowd of about 1,000 Saturday night in the town centre to detain a suspect on charges of dangerous physical assault but came under attack as others hurled bottles at them. Witnesses had reported small groups of youths, some armed with knives or replica handguns that can fire flares and teargas, roving through the medieval town centre, police said. Several police cars were sprayed with graffiti or otherwise vandalised in the small town also dubbed "Daimler city" because automotive inventor Gottlieb Daimler was born there in 1834. In a press conference Monday, Eisele evoked the chaos of Cologne's infamous 2015 New Year's Eve celebrations when men of North African and Middle Eastern appearance groped and assaulted hundreds of women, sparking widespread public outrage. He stressed that the rowdy scenes in Schorndorf were less intense than those in Cologne or the riots in the northern port-city of Hamburg before and during the July 7-8 Group of 20 summit, when far-left and anarchist militants burnt street barricades and threw rocks from rooftops. Top stories Authorities said a total of 192 Azerbaijani troops were killed and 511 were wounded during Azerbaijan’s offensive. In 2023, the Azerbaijani government will increase the country’s defense budget by more than 1.1 billion manats ($650 million). The bill, published on Monday, is designed to "eliminate the shortcomings of an unreasonably broad interpretation of the key concept of "compatriot". The earthquake caused a temporary blackout, damaged many buildings and closed a number of rural roads. Partner news | Government reveals details from Pashinyan’s meeting in border village Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has met with a group of residents of a border village in Armenia’s northern Tavush province Narek Manasyan wins European Boxing Championships silver for Armenia Armenia’s Narek Manasyan (92kg) won Armenia’s second silver medal at the European Boxing Championships 2024 on April 28. Blinken urges Azerbaijan to continue negotiations with Armenia Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken has urged Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to continue negotiations with Armenia. Pashinyan, Blinken talk Armenia-U.S. ties over the phone Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan had a phone conversation with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on April 28, Pashinyan’s office reports. |