Yesterday was another intense day in the ongoing ideological — and sometimes physical — clash between Dutch authorities and pro-Palestinian groups in the Netherlands.
As the Parliament in The Hague discussed issues of integration, citizenship rights, and the right to protest, the riot police in Amsterdam violently repressed a non-authorised pro-Palestine protest.
Police brutality in Amsterdam
Following last week’s violent incidents around the Ajax-Maccabi Tel Aviv football match, Amsterdam authorities have restricted the right to protest in the city, meaning that demonstrations can be relocated or banned altogether.
Yesterday, this new measure resulted in the banning of the pro-Palestine demonstration organised in Dam Square, which the authorities demanded to be moved to Westerpark.
However, when hundreds of protestors defied the ban and showed up at the original Dam Square location, the riot police repressed them violently, reports NOS.
Arrested, driven away, and beaten up
According to NOS, the riot police arrested a total of 281 people, 265 of which for disobeying the order to leave Dam Square.
The arrested were then transported by bus to the Western Docklands, on the outskirts of Amsterdam.
Footage recorded by protestors shows the police throwing people out of the bus and beating them with batons.
This has been confirmed by the police in a statement, where the authorities also announced that they are investigating the incident.
Taking Dutch passports away
While these concerning events unfolded in Amsterdam, in The Hague, the Parliament tackled an equally sensitive discussion.
The government coalition views last week’s events around the Ajax-Maccabi Tel Aviv match as a grave episode of anti-semitism, and is quite explicitly pointing fingers towards specific groups of Dutch society for it, writes the NOS.
While discussing the “tough action” to be taken against anti-semitism, Prime Minister Schoof explicitly referred to a group with a “migration background” who has their “back [turned] to society” and “does not share Western values” as the primary target of this action, reports the NOS.
PVV and BBB leaders Geert Wilders and Caroline van der Plas went as far as suggesting that the individuals involved in last week’s Amsterdam incidents holding dual nationality should be stripped of their Dutch passports.
This radical statement, however, has already attracted widespread criticism, including from experts who have questioned its legal feasibility, as the NOS writes.
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