by Carl Deconinck, Brussels Signal
A public awareness campaign in Germany has sparked controversy over its portrayal of victims and offenders of harassment in public swimming pools.
The campaign, picturing ethnic Germans as the harassers of immigrants, ignored the fact that nationwide the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) registered 423 sexual assaults in swimming pools in 2024: Almost 65 per cent of the perpetrators were non-German, while many of the rest also had a migrant background.
With the high summer temperatures in Germany, the country has been confronted again with migrant gangs harassing and assaulting people.
Rather than targeting specific profiles, the city of Büren, in North Rhine-Westphalia, chose to take a different approach in its efforts to draw attention to the problem.
In a poster campaign, devised with the input of local counselling groups, ethnic Germans have been depicted harassing migrants.