In the Swiss city of Bern, a group of suspected left-wing extremists assaulted seven women belonging to the French and Swiss conservative women’s group Collectif Némésis inside a restaurant. The female victims report that 20 hooded men attacked the women with chairs, bottles, knives, and pepper spray, resulting in injuries to the women.
In a statement published on Twitter, Collectif Némésis reported that “our activists are traumatized and the restaurant is destroyed.” Earlier in the day, the group had participated in the Swiss women’s strike.
The group also released a video from one of the activists, who spoke while still in the restaurant. In the background, broken glass can be seen, and individuals are sweeping up the glass.
“With Némesis, we had supported the strike of Swiss women, which happens every June. We were in a restaurant to celebrate our action, except we were attacked by some 20 Antifa members who overturned chairs and tables against the window. It sounds stupid, but they threw them pretty hard. After that, they threw tear gas grenades, and a knife was thrown at my face. I was also hit with a bottle of wine on the ear,” the unnamed activist stated.
She then related that the waiters in the restaurant rushed in to defend the women.
“It was quite a violent incident. It was also quite shocking,” said the woman. “We hid under the tables, under the bar, but it was really hyper-dangerous.”
The group also showed the bloodied ear of one of the women. Destroyed furniture and damaged windows can also be seen in the video.
Some prominent feminist activists spoke up over the incident.
“Battered women. A destroyed restaurant. Because they are accused of racism. Because they dare to say that street harassment comes mainly from men from an immigration background. I see few people — except those labeled ED — worrying about the violence that women from Collectif Némésis suffer. Hello, feminists, a little courage. This deafening silence means ‘They had it coming,’” wrote Marguerite Stern, a French women’s rights activist who co-founded Femelliste.
Just this month, Remix News reported on the group, which has become known for sharing testimonials of women who have been sexually assaulted or harassed by men of migrant origin and foreigners.
In video shorts, the women relate how men with an immigration background have assaulted them or attempted to rape them.
“Personally, it is always the Maghrebi types who follow, whistle at and insult me,” says Lea while relating an account of how she was sexually harassed by a large group of North African men.
In another video, a woman relates how she was chased down by a Black male all the way into her apartment building after a long period of sexual harassment in her neighborhood. She recounts how the incident left her traumatized.
Collectif Némésis was founded in Paris in October 2019. According to the group’s own statement, disappointment about the feminist movement were a major motivation in founding the group. The group criticizes feminists who “allegedly represent (women’s) interests,” but instead put “a left-wing ideology above the needs of women.”
The group references numerous other cases of foreigners sexually assaulting European women in a variety of countries.
“We have all made the same observation: The people who attack us daily are mostly non-natives. We created Nemesis because mainstream feminist organizations are very reluctant to talk about cases like the Cologne sexual assaults (caused by people of Middle Eastern or North African origin) or large-scale rape and pimping of female British minors in Rotherham, Telford, Rochdale, Derby, Oxford, etc. (organized exclusively by members of the Indo-Pakistani community). But also because street harassment is mainly the work of men from a different culture, and feminist associations try to hide this fact by masking our very concrete problems with abstract concepts such as ‘patriarchy.’”