https://www.nbcnews.com/world/asia/chin ... rcna353442
Chinese men in Germany used Telegram groups to share rape videos and drugging tips, prosecutors say
The German cases have been compared to the case of Gisèle Pelicot, a French woman who was repeatedly drugged and raped by her then-husband and strangers he invited to their home.
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BERLIN — They called themselves the “German driving school for experts,” but prosecutors say the true purpose of their Telegram chats was to brag about the women they raped and share tips about how to drug them.
In posts that sometimes included photos and videos of their attacks on unconscious victims, they referred to women as “cars,” sedatives as “fuel” and rape as “driving,” according to court documents. They called their victims “dead pigs.”
Investigators have been poring through several years’ worth of posts in roughly two dozen group chats on the popular messaging app that authorities believe served an online predator network of mainly Chinese men targeting mostly Chinese women in Germany. Their investigation has led to the convictions of three alleged inner circle members on rape and other charges, and the ongoing trial of a fourth man in Berlin.
“The perpetrators were characterized by a particular ruthlessness, an objectification of the victims, and the perfidious planning of their crimes,” Frankfurt chief prosecutor Dominik Mies told The Associated Press.
Major details of the investigation remain unknown, at least to the public, including how many attacks and perpetrators have been linked to the German Telegram chats and how the chats, some of which reportedly had tens of thousands of members, could have operated for so long. It’s also unclear whether the chats are linked to a ballooning investigation in Europe and the Americas into drug-facilitated sexual assaults by misogynist online communities.
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This may be why the investigation into the Telegram group has garnered less attention in Germany than might be expected. But members of the country’s Chinese community, mostly women, have been attending court proceedings to show support for the victims even if they don’t know them.
“What makes one really angry is to see that such groups hate women, they have no respect,” said Fu Xiao, who traveled about 300 miles to Berlin last week to attend the trial. “Women aren’t seen as people.”
In China, state media has covered the cases comprehensively, but wider discussion about the prosecutions on Chinese-language social media like RedNote has been partially censored. Certain tags have been more likely to get a post deleted or banned on RedNote, screenshots and searches show. But posts using less direct language have survived the censors, including ones that refer to “date rape” or the euphemistic “students studying abroad in Germany.”
