Just a heads up for the ladies (I'm not being condescending)
Over the last couple of weeks, at least two rapes and sexual assaults in Basel.
One by the Rhine, one in Shuttzenmatt Park, another in Gundeli.

There are constant attacks like this in Basel. The Rhine area being the hotspot.
Last year a woman was raped in a public toilet down there in daylight hours.

Please don't get complacent, and take the same precautions you would in your home country, and in my opinion, don't go along the Rhine alone.

Last year?!?! This is the 11th reported sexual attack this year so far in Basel.

I don't read the news so don't keep abreast of the local crime scene, but my old hauswarden was a paramedic and he told me it all goes on in Basel, stabbings, rapes, assaults, etc, etc, etc.

Basel has the same problems as any other large town in Europe.
The fact the place seems devoid of life after 8pm at night lulls people into a false sense of security.

Exactly. On average I read 4 newspapers/day. 2 of them Swiss ones...so I'm quite well informed on the mattrer and it seems to me, that Basel averages roughly 1-2 rapes/month. At least according to what I'm reading in the newspaper.

Last week around 8pm I saw a guy trying it on with every girl who walked past. He was hassling them, saying rude things and trying to grab and kiss them. I observed this for approximately 15 minutes. After the 6th girl he went up to a woman who was waiting for the bus. After rejecting his advances she lifted her shopping bag and moved few metres away but he followed her and kept invading her private space.

Something snapped in me as people like him give foreigners a bad name, I went to him and was about to punch his lights out but at the last moment stopped and pushed him to the ground instead. He started threatening me but saw that I meant business so backed off. Lady was thankful. Thing is that the guy was from a very bad conservative part of the world so he probably has no respect for woman and I am sure he will continue hassling them.

So actually your name should be Kung Fu panda!

I am a very calm guy and to be honest I was scared of him pulling out a knife. A bleeding or dead Panda is no good.

All good, except this bit: "the guy was from a very bad conservative part of the world so he probably has no respect for woman". Talk about profiling ... So where was this guy from, and how did you know? Did he drop his Ausländerausweis on the ground when you pushed him? And which good, liberal part of the world are you from?

By the way, while I secretly applaud you pushing "the guy" to the ground, don't even try it if the police are watching. Especially since the guy wasn't hassling you.

Why would police watch guy hassling women and do nothing till a guy comes along and pushes him to the ground? They're not that lame...

Panda knows these things, no profiling I come from a non liberal gutter country so I have good experience of these things.

You live in the french part....

It is very strange because those of us who live in the French speaking part are often given the (perhaps false, according to this thread) impression, through media and all, that things are much better organised and safety higher on the other side of the roestigrabe.

It's back to the old debate: "Is insecurity a matter of perception or reality"?

Here is a question, what % of serious sexual assaults or assaults in general are being committed by foreigners and how many by local Swiss? Is there any data on it? My Swiss friends think that most serious crimes on strangers are being committed by foreigners. What are the cold hard facts?

I find Switzerland very safe generally speaking.

you are more likely to be attacked or sexualy assaulted as a woman by a person you already know. so if this is the case most sexual assualts are committed by swiss men.

It is the randomness of the park situation or the toilet block that grabs the headlines. Not someones colleague assaulting them after a night out.

I am aware of that but I was talking about stranger attacks, sexual and non sexual. Btw why can't foreigners know a woman already too? Most attacks might be carried out by Swiss men but then they are the majority here so that would be obvious. It's the % of attacks in relation to population that will give the true picture.

I agree but both are bad for the victim.

A good neighbour of ours is a senior policeman in Basel. We had invited him and his family over dinner and during the course of the conversation I asked him what was the most common crime he had to deal with.

I had expected him to say burglary or car theft but he said domestic violence. I find this very shocking that beneath this "clean tidy society" lurks such a statistic.

Having listened to our neighbors in our building and those around us, this doesn't surprise me.

Isn't this the case in most societies though? Murders and assaults are usually committed on and by people who know each other, many times spouses or people who live together. Knowing policemen from my home town in Canada this was also the case for most crimes committed and if it didn't happen that way it, the criminal in question had usually had issues arising from domestic issues.

My grandma used to think that the Earth is flat. Because if it were round, people on the other side would fall off.

Hard facts wouldn't convince her.

Some of you may not know, but in Switzerland domestic violence was determined a criminal offence liable to public prosecution only in 2004.