At least 547 children in Germany’s world-famous Regensburger Domspatzen boy’s choir have been confirmed as victims of sexual and physical abuse, a final report on one of the biggest catholic abuse scandals in the German history showed on Tuesday. There was for decades a “system of fear” with beatings and sexual abuse, according to the report, released after a two-year inquiry that spanned cases between 1945 and the early 1990s.
Seven years after the first cases became public, the report put the number of incidents of physical abuse at 500 and incidents of sexual abuse at 67. The Roman Catholic diocese of Regensburg and the choir had subsequently assigned the lawyer Ulrich Weber to conduct an inquiry into the scandal. Some of the victims described their membership of the choir as the worst time of their lives and likened the experience to a “prison”, “hell”, and a “concentration camp”.
Source: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-07/18/c_136453449.htm
