Report: Sex crimes by migrants in Germany doubled last year

A report recently released by the German government showed that sex crimes committed by migrants doubled in 2016.

According to police statistics, 3,404 sex crimes were committed by migrants last year, just less than double the 1,683 committed by migrants in 2015. And it's more than five times the 645 sex crimes committed by migrants in 2012.

Sex crimes by migrants were 9.1 percent of 2016's total sex crime in Germany, according to the report.

According to analysis from the non-partisan media watchdog group, Gatestone Institute, the nationalities that were most frequently involved in the sex crimes — ranging from exposure to rape — were Syrian, Afghan, Iraqi, Pakistani, Iranian, Algerian, and Moroccan.

The Gatestone Institute pointed to Germany's "lenient legal system" as one of the reasons sex crimes had increased within the country:

Germany's migrant sex-crime problem is being exacerbated by its lenient legal system, in which offenders receive relatively light sentences, even for serious crimes. In many instances, individuals who are arrested for sex crimes are released after questioning from police. This practice allows criminal suspects to continue committing crimes with virtual impunity.

Gatestone Institute also criticized German authorities' inability to take the "rape crisis" seriously, and cited the case of a 23-year-old Turkish man who was acquitted of rape charges because the victim couldn't prove she did not give the rapist consent.

According to the victim's testimony, her head was forced between the steel bars of a headboard on a bed and, despite verbal and physical attempts to stop her accused rapist, was "repeatedly violated" over the course of four hours.

The victim said eventually she stopped resisting. The court, according to Gatestone Institute, reportedly asked the victim, "Could it be that the defendant thought you were in agreement?"

German authorities have been accused in the past of going so far as to attempt to cover up migrant sex crimes, the largest of which occurred in Cologne, Germany, on New Year's Eve in 2015. According to the Telegraph, more than 120 women filed complaints with Cologne police — ranging from sexual assault to robbery — during the New Year's festivities by what was estimated at 1,000 migrant men at the city's main train station.

Cologne Police Chief Wolfgang Albers was fired in early January 2016 as reports of the police cover-up of migrant sex attacks began to surface, according to the Los Angeles Times.