The police in the Netherlands are following their American counterparts. They arrested 169 activists during a pro-Palestine demonstration on Tuesday afternoon.
Wednesday 8 May at 02:18
Several thousand protesters gathered to demonstrate against the war in Gaza.
Videos from the demonstration show that the police broke up the demonstration with the use of physical force. Several activists were beaten with batons and 169 were arrested, according to the Reuters news agency.
The violent clashes with the police occurred less than a day after the police demolished a tent action at the University of Amsterdam, where both students and staff had set up camp to demand an academic boycott of Israel.
Also yesterday, the activists were removed by physical force.
Police used bulldozers and excavators to tear down barricades and tents that had been set up by the protesters.
At X, the police stated that the action was “necessary to restore order”.
The protesters do not agree with that.
– Students and staff describe the use of pepper spray, police batons, police dogs and bulldozers to remove them by force. People were injured because of this excessive violence, a group calling itself Dutch Scholars for Palestine said in a statement.
The university said in a statement that an initially peaceful student protest that began on Monday afternoon had turned hostile, with violence, the throwing of fireworks and the burning of an Israeli flag.
Protests across Europe
The protests at Columbia University in the US received a lot of international attention last month. Since then, there have been student uprisings in support of Palestine in several places in the USA and Europe.
The demonstrators demand, among other things, that the universities cut ties with Israeli universities.
Tent actions have also been organized in Norway at at least universities, including the University of Oslo, the University of Bergen, the University of Tromsø, the University of South-Eastern Norway and the Norwegian University of Environmental and Life Sciences (NMBU).
In Oslo, dozens of tents have been set up.
– We feel it is unfair that we as students are sitting here, while our fellow students in Gaza have had their universities blown to pieces, said Jihad Al-Mahdi, a member of Students for Palestine, to NRK last week.
