The swimming pool in Bornheim, Germany made headlines worldwide last week when it banned migrant males from their waters, but just days later they have buckled under pressure to lift the ban.
The decision to re-admit migrants from a nearby camp comes despite reports of incidents across the country, including one of children being sexually assaulted on Saturday, just 24 hours before the announcement was made.
While the local authority who run the pool were expected to make an announcement on the future of the ban on Monday, they went ahead and declared the pool would re-open from this Wednesday (21st January). A spokesman for the pool “hopes there will be no more sexual harrasment”, reports Rheinische Post.
While the company had originally declared their intention to keep the ban in place until the newly arrived migrants in the area had “got the message” about sex abuse and had learnt their lesson, there had been strong criticism and pressure to lift the restriction.
The director of the North Rhine-Westphalia Refugee Council was one who criticised the decision, calling it discriminatory. Others, including the German Society for Bathing have pointed out the ban was legally questionable and could result in the pool being sued by migrants.
As an alternative to the ban, new pool signs have been erected with pictorial diagrams explaining that inappropriate touching and remarks are prohibited, reports Focus. The ban had originally been triggered by migrants making remarks and directing obscene gestures towards women bathers, promting them to abandon the public facility when migrants were using it. Yet there has been worse activities reported in other baths.
Police arrested a 19 year old Afghan man on Saturday afternoon after they received complaints from four children. The girls, all aged between 11 and 13 years old were swimming at a public baths in Dresden when they were “touched immorally” by the man, reports MOPO24. Two other migrants were also suspected. Remarkably, the arrested man has since been released from police custody.
When approached by local media, the Dresden city director of sports said applying a migrant pool ban after the molestation of the children by migrants was out of the question. He said: “It is not right to put all the people under general suspicion”.
This is not the only case of young women being attacked by migrants in past days. Breitbart London reported last week on two sisters who were molested at a pool in Munich. Aged 14 and 17, the girls were groped “allegedly under their bathing suits”, “and possibly raped” by a gang of “refugees” while enjoying a water-slide at their local pool.
Just as in Dresden, the Syrian and Afghan migrants responsible were arrested, but immediately released.
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