Worrying situation

I'm not saying there aren't concerns and some public unrest re asylum seekers in Sweden - like most countries that take in asylum seekers there are pressures. But there don't appear to be reports from other countries saying that the situation is in virtual "meltdown". The huge backlog here arose before this particular Syrian crisis.

I don't believe that groping, other sexual assault and robbing women on NYE was because the men' didn't understand' Western culture.They simply saw it would be easy to get away with it.So they did it.That was one night, let's hope it doesn't continue.

Eloethan you just made my point. In my response to you I said I thought it's the reception centres that should be improved. I am well aware of how bad the situation is with the current process in the UK and believe that's where the improvement is necessary. In the current situation I can see the case for women with children being treated more favourably to relieve pressure on the system until it's working more smoothly. I don't know what the solution is, but clearly in this country the financing of the system is inadequate and inefficient. My replies though were really made with Germany in mind which has to cope with a huge increase in applicants.

rosesarered the German Justice Minister Heiko Maas now said he believes that the attackers were part of an organised crime network who used smart phones and social networks to coordinate the attacks.

Heiko Maas and his SPD party have championed minority rights for years, but have now joined with Angela Merkel's CDU party in proposing tougher laws for criminal migrants (Germany has a coalition government btw). I think this makes it clear that cultural ignorance is not behind the NYE attacks.

Just because a minister says it was organised doesn't mean it was. These men's attitudes need to change full stop. Police need to be seriously seen to be on the case. Every case. Its too easy to write it off as some sort of one off attack. The govts political agenda may be leading them to downplay the situation. Its a powder keg with Pegida just waiting to get stuck in.

It doesn't have to have been organised to have been a situation that spread rapidly. Violence is infectious, (against anyone, men or women, on minorities or by them) If a group of single, bored, young men with a shortage of female company in one area heard that others had harassed the "easy" local women in another area without ending up in court, then they could be attracted to places where there were going to be a lot of girls about to ogle and try to get lucky.

They would push it as far as they could go, and an attitude by the authorities of treading lightly where ethnic and cultural sensitivities could be concerned wouldn't stop them until it got out of hand.

The inference in the statement by Heiko Maas is he would not say such a thing if he didn't believe it, he's not Merkel's poodle and it's not in keeping with the stance his party takes on immigration matters. But I agree with you that we don't know for sure.

I doubt if the attitudes of the attackers can be changed, but they can be made aware of the consequences of acting on those attitudes. I think the government is moving away from playing down the immigration problem and is now intending to introduce legislation enabling it to come down hard on criminal migrants. The government needs to be seen as in control of the migrant situation and hopefully the new legislation will be a step in the right direction.

The problem around deportation still exists though and Germany will have to find a country willing to take deportees. Turkey has already refused.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jan/24/asylum-seekers-made-to-wear-coloured-wristbands-cardiff

Is this how asylum seekers should be treated? They may as well be tagged.
Another company that should not be involved with social services.

Wristbands don't have to show until claiming food.

Also, if it really were a problem, the rest of us could start wearing red wristbands too. Wristbands are easy enough to get hold of. I presume the Lynx House ones are distinctive but you'd have to look closely at everyone's wrist to know whether someone was wearing a Lynx House food band or not. Who"s going to do that?

If the wristband meal ticket thing is so outrageous, I guess someone needs to think of a better meal ticket idea.

news.sky.com/story/1628904/asylum-seeker-wristbands-to-be-replaced-with-id

They're withdrawing them.

Shows someone was more concerned than you, bags.

Red wristbands? Red doors? Asylum seekers attacked because of them?
Perhaps we should all paint our doors red?
Thought not.

In the article, they said that the bands showed all the time. If they took them off, they could not get food.

How do we really want asylum seekers to be treated?
Should we not show some compassion for people in such a plight?

I'm amused that one of the asylum seekers said: it was one of the worst things that had ever happened to him. Lord help him when he enters the real world.

Did you actually read the full article, bags? If so, you obviously did not take it all in.

That's a disgusting remark, petra.
Amused?
You think asylum seekers aren't in the real world?

Just an observation, I do remember being on holiday in Mexico 10 or so years ago and the hotel where we were staying gave their guests wristbands so they knew they were guests at that hotel when ordering food, drink and using the pools and also to enable them to access facilities at a nearby sister hotels. I don't think it's that unusual to for hotels to operate this sort of system. In any case people wear all manner of paraphernalia around wrists these days. Wristbands can of course be hidden. Red doors can't, so I don't think that's a great idea if it marks them out as a target.

Yellow stars in The Netherlands spring to mind.

OK so what do you suggest?

How do you distribute a finite amount of food equally in a situation where you have very large numbers of people arriving daily, some without paperwork, without some getting double rations and others missing out?

I simplistically thought a long sleeve would cover a wristband except when it had to be shown to claim a meal. Silly me. Bracelets and bangles are always visible; they are not hidable AT ALL.

People (apart from me) do still wear long sleeves in winter, I presume?

WHY are so many of the doors of houses where refugees are housed painted red? Are they all owned by the same person/company, who just happened to use the same paint (cheaper than all different colours and red is a nice colour)? Just wondering.

Having discovered that the doors are mostly red and that this has caused racist thugs to be unpleasant, obviously repainting them is a good idea, but the way the media is presenting this story, anyone'd think it was deliberate.

Ditto the wristbands thing.

Durhamjen. It's all one sided with you. Do you ever read anything about some of the disgusting behaviour by 'some' migrants in several mainland European countries. Have you read that migrants are being banned from public swimming pools. TMI to put here.

I expect the council always paints their council houses in the same colour, they certainly all used to.The refugges would not have been

put into houses and THEN their doors painted red surely, and if so , should be easy to find out if this is true, but somehow I doubt it.