The police in the German city of Cologne said Sunday that "consistent intervention" on New Year's Eve had prevented a repeat of the multiple offences committed by mostly North African men in the city centre in 2015.
"We had groups of people who were similarly aggressive," police chief Juergen Mathies said.
Several hundred North African men travelled into the city again in 2016 for New Year's Eve, but the great difference this time was that police were consistent in intervening, Mathies said.
After hundreds of women reported being harassed, assaulted and in some cases raped by groups of men during 2015's celebrations, authorities had increased the number of police officers on the beat tenfold to around 1,500 in the city centre alone.
Because of the aggression of some of the groups of men, police called for back-up on the night, increasing the number of officers in the city to 1,700.
Officers checked the identity of 650 people, almost exclusively North Africans, Mathies said.
Police barred 190 people from the city centre and took 92 into custody. Ten sexual offences were reported, but no rapes.
Mathies rejected the accusation of racial profiling by officers, insisting that they were merely concerned with the aggressive behaviour of the men.
"The greatest proportion were such that a crime was about to be committed," Mathies said, adding that this was precisely what the police had prevented.
Mathies said that German men had also been checked during the night.
But the police came in for harsh criticism for using the term "Nafris" on Twitter for North Africans.
"I find this term extremely dehumanizing," former politician Christopher Lauer told dpa.
Mathies accepted on Sunday evening that he should not have used the term publicly.
By Christoph Driessen
