Three Pakistani asylum seekers are being investigated after dozens of women said they were sexually harassed at a music festival at the weekend in Germany. A total of 26 women made complaints of harassment at the festival in the western city of Darmstadt, which attracted ,, people over four days.
The accusations follow mass sexual attacks on women at New Year's Eve in Cologne which fueled a backlash against Chancellor Angela Merkel's open-door migrant policy.
Prosecutors said three men between 28 and 31, all asylum seekers originally from Pakistan, were arrested at the weekend and released and are now under investigation. Two or three other men who were with them at the time have yet to be identified, prosecutors said.
Following this year's New Year's celebrations in Cologne, more than women filed complaints with the police, saying they were groped, attacked and robbed outside the train station. The events in Darmstadt do not seem to be on the same scale but, following several complaints of sexual harassment at a parade in Berlin in May, they could compound fears about the integration of migrants and worsen social tensions. There have been assaults on migrant shelters so far this year, according to the interior minister.
Despite a fall in her own and her conservative party's popularity, Merkel has said that, even with hindsight, she would allow people in humanitarian need to enter Germany again, as she did last year.
