Holger Ziegeler, a German diplomat in Karachi, has been accused of sexually harassing attendees and groping a woman at an event in Karachi. The event took place on November 13 last year and was co-funded by the German Consulate.
“At the 2nd ScrapFest Pakistan event on November 13th/ 2021 at a privately hired venue; a woman attending was sexually harassed by one of the senior staff members from the German Consulate in Karachi,” wrote Urvah Khan in an Instagram post. She was the main organiser of the event.
“Since my last post on this incident, the German Federal Foreign Office’s unit responsible for investigating all allegations of sexual misconduct has directly contacted me. I have provided them with the video and text evidence I mentioned was in my possession,” wrote Urvah in a separate Instagram post.
Talking exclusively to The Current, Urvah Khan said that she organised the event ScrapFest, which promotes women and people from the LGBT community. The second event was co-funded by the German Consulate and Holger Ziegeler was German Consul General in Karachi.
The event took place on November 13, 2021, and Urvah officially issued a statement on April 22, 2022. Three days after issuing a statement, she contacted the German Foreign Office.
“It took a bit of time to make the statement because I needed time to speak to a victim and to convince the witnesses to come forward. We had a text message. After we found the video evidence and had collected the statements of the victims, I knew we had everything we needed.”
Regarding the status of the investigation, she said the German Foreign Office in Berlin is investigating the matter. “They are interviewing the witnesses and the victim. We are waiting to find out what is going to happen.”
Urvah further added that the woman who was groped by Holger Ziegeler reached out to her with the allegations the same night, and recorded her statement the next morning. “I brought it up with Holger. At first he was willing to apologise. The victim asked for a written apology as she was traumatised and did not want to see his face. He later retracted his apology and said that he did not harass her and this was a terrorist attack on his legacy.”
He also pressurised Urvah to get rid of the evidence.
Urvah said that when the German Consulate in Karachi was informed, they messaged her to take her Instagram posts down.
“They did not support me or try to investigate, which is one of the reasons I reached out to the German Foreign Office in Berlin.”
“A woman came by the stage where he groped her buttocks, then grabbed her hand.”
Urvah added that apart from the victim who was groped, Holger’s behaviour throughout the night was unacceptable and disrespectful towards many of the attendees. Many of them came forward as witnesses about how uncomfortable they felt.
“In terms of other attendees, he would try to go closer to them. A few of the witnesses said that they saw him trying to touch women on their body parts, on their stomachs, on their backs.”
“There was another witness who said that he was standing in front of him while he kept touching his friend’s back. She kept putting his hand back to where it was supposed to be,” added Urvah.
Asked why she chose to speak to an international publication, VICE, instead of a local one regarding the case, Urvah said, “Because he is a foreign diplomat, he had diplomatic immunity so that is why I was worried about PEMRA coming after an article or news item like this, and shutting it down. This is why I wanted the first article to be published in an international publication so PEMRA could not touch it.”
“The big issue is that he thought because he co-funded the event through the German Consulate, he could behave in this manner and could get away with it,” said Urvah. “I think it’s important if we all talk about what he did and I think it’s important to have a conversation.”
Talking exclusively to The Current, Dr Mehrub Moiz Awan, said, “I was hosting this event for a fee as requested by Urvah and a lot of my fans came specially for me.”
While narrating what happened at the event, Mehrub said, “The white man was visibly drunk or at least tipsy and interrupted me a few times during my jokes as well. I had especially made a point to crack jokes at white people and white privilege and our own audience was loving them. He tried to be a little handsy with me as well but as I’m a Pakistani transwoman, I know how to handle such guys very well.”
“Later I found out that a female left very upset because she was groped by the same guy. The dude actually sent Urvah a text as well that I saw with my own eyes. It said something like who’s this girl, she’s good. I want her number,” added Mehrub.
Disclaimer: The Current is not responsible for the statements mentioned in the story.
