Focus reporting on the 2015–16 New Year's Eve sexual assaults in Germany created controversy. The cover page showed hand prints in black paint on a white, naked woman; it was criticized as a "naked insult" and considered "racist". Unlike the German daily newspaper, "Süddeutsche Zeitung", which had also caused an uproar with a polarizing depiction, Focus refused to apologize and justified the cover as a symbolic depiction of "what happened in Cologne". The German Press Council received several complaints about Focus, but rejected all of them.