In their ongoing attempts to assimilate and integrate the several hundred thousand recent middle-eastern refugees, both Germany and Austria have resorted to what some have dubbed childish measures, creating pamphlets and websites explaining what is permitted, either in public, by the swimming pool, or even what is proper and improper during sex (along with a basic sex education course). Not surprisingly, these have failed to work, as today's report of 69,000 crimes committed by German refugees in just the first quarter has demonstrated.
Which is perhaps why an Austrian politician from the right-wing Freedom Party, Armin Sippel, has taken these steps to their absurd extreme and released a provocative, and according to many, scandalous video in which he "explains" to asylum seekers, using a blonde mannequin and posters in Arabic, that European women generally don’t like being groped in public by strangers.
The video sparked a lot of negative comments and a series of video responses, forcing Sippel to take the video down due to “extremely aggressive personal attacks,” reports the Local. “A debate on this unpleasant topic of sexual assaults is essential, but should be good mannered,” Sippel said on Facebook. Soon, however, the video reemerged on YouTube uploaded by others.
Sippel appears on the screen and addresses the viewers: “Dear … Asylum Seekers.” Then a blonde mannequin dressed in an open blouse and a low-cut skirt comes into shot.
The politician asks migrants not to look at women provocatively, whistle or harass them. Sippel physically demonstrates on the mannequin that groping women, “grabbing a woman by the butt or bosom” is unacceptable. At the end of the video, Sippel shows a sign reading: “Keep your fingers off our women”.
As a reminder, the anti-immigration and Euroskeptic party nearly won the presidential post in a recent poll with candidate Norbert Hofer, who was even ahead of the Green Party candidate Alexander van der Bellen while ballots were being counted.
The FPO says the making of the video was spurred by a string of sex harassment scandals in neighboring Germany involving asylum seekers.
Only a month ago, a German education center was reportedly hired by the German government to teach migrants how to approach and get acquainted with local women at specially organized classes. Bayerischer Rundfunk television filmed one of the classes teaching migrants how to get along better with women. The majority of comments on the video were negative.