A lawyer
representing 231 people has alleged that his clients faced abuse by adults
working with the Domspatzen, a Catholic choir in Bavaria. Several victims
alleged sexual harassment.
Deutsche Welle, 8 January, 2016
Ulrich
Weber, the lawyer representing the alleged victims, was commissioned by the
church diocese to look into the cases.
In a press
conference on Friday, he said: "I have here 231 reports of physical
abuse." These ranged from beatings to food deprivation, sexual assault and
rape, Weber told journalists.
"The
reported cases of sexual abuse in Regensburg were mostly concentrated in the
period of the mid-to-late1970s," he said. According to the lawyer,
"50 victims spoke of 10 perpetrators" at the Regensburger Domspatzen
boys' choir and two associated boarding schools between 1953 and 1992.
However,
the actual number of victims could be much higher, Weber said, because at least
every third child out of the 2,100 pupils in the choir had been subjected to
physical violence.
Lawyer Ulrich Weber: more victims likely |
In an
interview with "Spiegel" magazine in 2010, director and composer
Frank Wittenbrink, a former pupil of Regensburg, said there was a "system
of sadistic punishments connected to sexual pleasure."
Weber told
reporters that the events were "internally known and criticized, but they
had almost no consequences." Most of the cases can no longer be pursued in
court, because they happened too long ago.
The
Domspatzen is a 1,000-year-old choir in Bavaria's Regensburg. It was first
shaken by the massive sexual abuse scandal in 2010 , when former pupils alleged
abuse by adults in the Catholic Church. The choir was run by Pope Benedict's
elder brother, Georg Ratzinger (pictured above, left, next to his brother
Joseph), from 1964 to 1994, when most of the abuse is believed to have
occurred.
According
to the victims' lawyer, Georg Ratzinger must have known of some of the cases,
although he has denied having any information. The diocese had previously
offered to pay victims 2,500 euros each ($2,730 at today's exchange) in
damages.
mg/msh (AFP, dpa)
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