After a young Irish woman claimed on Instagram at the end of May that she had been given knockout drops at a backstage party of a Rammstein concert in Vilnius, there are now new findings on the status of the Lithuanian police investigation.
As the Lithuanian newspaper “Lietuvos rytas” reports, the investigators refrain from proceeding after evaluating the necessary data. According to Tomas Braženias, the chief officer of the communications sub-department of the Vilnius County Supreme Police Commissariat, no information on the facts of the case was available. In addition, the necessary documents from the Northern Irish police for further analysis were missing. Now the police decision still has to be approved by the public prosecutor.
Shelby Lynn, who drew attention to the alleged abuses at Rammstein concerts with her claims and also shared pictures of bruises on her upper body, said she spoke to the local authorities five hours earlier.
She later emphasized: “Till did NOT touch me. He accepted that I didn’t want sex with him. I never claimed that he raped me.” However, she can no longer remember the after-show party to which she and other women were invited, and had symptoms such as tachycardia, nausea and chills the next day.
Since then, numerous other women have reported who are said to have had similar experiences. They report to media such as “NDR”, the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” and the “Bild” how they were specifically approached at Rammstein concerts and in advance via social media to attend exclusive after-show parties with the frontman of the band to come.
The band has not yet commented on this, but vehemently denies the allegation that they drugged women with knockout drops or alcohol. “These allegations are untrue without exception,” says a press release from the law firm Schertz Bergmann, which represents Lindemann.
At the same time, a petition calling for the band’s concerts in Munich and Berlin to be canceled is gaining momentum. Almost 27,000 signatures have already been collected in the course of this. Similar protest actions are also taking place for concerts in other countries, including Switzerland and Austria. At the concerts that are currently taking place in Munich, more and more demonstrators are gathering to protest for “solidarity with women who have been victims of sexualized violence”.
Source: “Lietuvos rytas”, “NDR”, “Süddeutsche Zeitung”
